President Muhammadu Buhari was today booed by lawmakers in the National Assembly during the 2019 Budget Presentation.
The budget presentation got rowdy and embarrassing as the lawmakers stopped the president on several occasions with their chanting of “Lies! Propaganda!” while he wrong presenting his speech.
When Buhari could not command decorum any longer, he said:
“May I appeal to the honourable members that the world is watching us… we’re supposed to be above this.”
But rather than reason with the president, the angry lawmakers continued heckling him.
Yakubu Dogara, speaker of the house of representatives, had pleaded with lawmakers in the lower legislative chamber not to embarrass Buhari during the budget presentation.
A source revealed that aggrieved lawmakers of the All Progressive’s Congress (APC) who did not get tickets to contest the 2019 polls planned to
protest against the president.
However, the source added that during a closed-door session on Thursday, Dogara pleaded with the aggrieved lawmakers not to protest against Buhari.
Another source said after the plea, some of the aggrieved lawmakers submitted their placards to Kawu Sumaila, senior special assistant to the president on national assembly matters (house of representatives).
“They submitted their placards to Kawu,” the source said.
“They are aggrieved, you know most of them did not get their tickets and that is why they want to protest. That is the reason for the delay, the joint session was supposed to start at 12.00noon but didn’t start until after 1.pm.
Buhari proposed a budget of N8.83 trillion for 2019.
The proposed budget shows that about a quarter of the sum (N2.14 trillion) will be used for debt servicing while capital expenditure is expected to gulp N2.031 trillion.
Further breakdown presented by the president shows that proposed recurrent expenditure is N4.04 trillion, statutory transfer is N492.36 billion, there is a sinking fund of N120 billion, while capital expenditure is N2.031 trillion.
In a presentation intermittently cut by rowdiness, Mr Buhari said the budget was prepared after wide consultations.
The budget was prepared on the assumption of $60 per barrel with crude oil production of 2.3 million barrels per day.
The exchange rate is assumed at N305 to $1.
Other assumptions include a real GDP growth of 3.01 per cent and inflation rate of 9.98 per cent.
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