Undue pressure from populace forces legislators to jerk up budgets

Okoi Obono-Obla, a former presidential aide to ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, highlighted that excessive demands from the public contribute to the inflation of budgets by lawmakers at both the federal and state levels.

In an interview conducted in Calabar, Obono-Obla noted that many Nigerian citizens expect legislators to fulfill all their needs, leading lawmakers to inflate budgets in an attempt to meet these demands. He emphasized that this pressure often stems from the populace’s desire for immediate gratification and a lack of self-sufficiency.

According to Obono-Obla, citizens frequently request financial assistance from lawmakers during festive occasions like Christmas, Ramadan, and New Yam festivals. Moreover, they seek monetary aid for essential expenses such as school fees and medical bills. Additionally, there is a prevalent expectation for lawmakers to provide vehicles and other amenities that individuals should ideally procure for themselves. This environment of entitlement encourages lawmakers to divert funds into areas traditionally managed by the executive branch, fueling a cycle of budgetary inflation.

“We want to organize so-called empowerment schemes, etc, but do we ever take time to ruminate ,reflect, and ponder where these legislators gets money they use for all these welfare schemes they embarked upon on their senatorial districts and constituencies now and then.

“As long as we expect our legislators to continue to play the role of the local government and father Christmas, we should shed crocodile tears when they pad the budget estimates, submitted to them for approval by the executive branch, and we should not hypocritically cry blue murder, when they insert humongous amounts into the budget, which are not specifically tied to clearly defined projects,” he said.

Obono-Obla was referring to the latest scandal that rocked the National Assembly, adding that it has been a recurring decimal in the history of all Appropriation Acts since the inception of democratic civil rule in the country 25 years ago.