Buhari has revealed his sole purpose of delaying the assent of the 2016 budget which led to a protracted drama between the legislative and executive arms of government.
President Muhammadu Buhari
President Muhammadu Buhari has revealed why he had to delay in signing the 2016 Appropriation Bill into law which led to bitter agitations among Nigerians.
Speaking during a radio interview over the weekend in Katsina his home state, Buhari assured Nigerians that his administration will effectively utilise available resources to turn around the fortunes of the country.
Buhari said, “We will do our best to fix the country. When the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udo Udoma, asked me to sign the budget weeks ago and there were issues, I told him I won’t. But when he insisted, I told him if I assented to it and anything happened, he would be held responsible.
“He accepted and left. But when he had a second thought, he ran back to me and agreed with me that we shouldn’t sign it. It was at that point I heard of padding. The committees of the National Assembly removed our projects and replaced it with theirs.
“That’s was why we had three weeks to look at it. When he returned to me again, Udoma told me that most of the projects the National Assembly included had been removed but that we can go with the remaining ones since I must approve money before funds would be released for the execution of projects.”