Aidoghie Paulinus, Abuja
Third Republic Senate President, Senator Ameh Ebute, has said that members of the National Assembly who booed President Muhammadu Buhari during the 2019 budget presentation carried out the action because of constituency projects.
Ebute specifically said that lawmakers’ action might have been caused by the of failure to the president to allow the them to dip their hands into the national treasury.
He said booing a president was unprecedented in history of democracy in the country.
He expressed dissatisfaction over the incident, insisting that the lawmakers’ action did not demonstrate mature conduct of people who were supposed to be members of the National Assembly: Senators and honourable members.
Ebute said the concerned lawmakers thought that they wanted to disgrace the president when in actual fact, they ended up disgracing themselves.
“I think people will interpret their action as the refusal of Mr President to allow them loot the national treasury in the name of constituency projects.
“The president being a symbol of authority of the country, any disgrace on him is a disgrace on the entire nation. So, the disgrace is not for President Muhammadu Buhari. It is a disgrace on the entire nation whom they claim to be representing.”
Ebute further said the action of the lawmakers should be condemned irrespective of the performance of the president.
According to Ebute, “the president, irrespective of any performance, represents the dignity of the nation.
“If he has performed much below expectations or committed any breach of the Constitution, they should have been able to muster enough support to impeach him rather than denigrate themselves, thinking they were denigrating Mr President. They disgraced themselves and the entire nation. It has never happened before.”
Ebute regretted that the lawmakers took party loyalty too far by the commotion caused during the budget presentation.
Asked about his assessment of the budget, the Benue-State-born Ebute said he was yet to get the details of the proposal.
I don’t agree with Ebute that as the symbol of authority in the land, the President deserves accolades rather than being booed and that the action of the law makers is a reflection of their dissatisfaction with the fact they have been denied of dipping hands into the treasury by the President. The action rather was a reflection of the cluelessness and zero performance of whom it (the act) was directed against.
The acts of booing and Cheering are unnecessary as budget presentation is a serious business. But in my view this disgraceful act came about because ALL Nigerian politicians are corrupt and ignorant. otherwise once somebody is elected (into executive or legislative position) he should see himself as serving to protect the interest of both those that voted for him and those that did not vote for him. Hence the PRESIDENT is the president of the whole Nigeria, While the National Assembly is the legislator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and each deserves the respect of the other.The Executive and The Legislator are the two elected arms of our three arm democracy. When there is no mutual respect between them, we are all disgraced as we saw
yesterday.