The recent passage of the 2014 Rivers State Appro
priation Bill at the Government House by the state lawmakers raised a lot of dust. The various arguments were either for or against the passage of the budget outside the Hallowed chambers of the House of Assembly.
In the midst of claims and counterclaims as to the legality of the action, our assistant women, living and style Editor, Sogbeba Dokubo, went to town to find out what the people think of it. The followings are excerpts.

Dr Olomabo Gillis-Harry, Philosopher – Well, the budget was really timely. If you look at the doctrine of necessity, alongside what is being unfolded in the State, we know that what the law makers did was  in consonance with the cry of the masses, the people of Rivers State.
This is because, without a direction, the year 2014 won’t be what we had expected it to be. Government has its duty to pay the salaries of workers and provide social amenities to the citizenry. When they delay, it will really lead to a situation whereby there will be lack of basic amenities. As I said earlier, the doctrine of necessity that was applied in this matter was really in order, and the place of the passing of the budget does not come in. The doctrine of necessity knows no law and cannot be subjected to law because it is the right thing to do, given the prevailing circumstance.
I believe the proceedings were taken and we know that before any budget is passed into law, there are processes and the due process was followed based on the prevailing circumstance. We really appreciate His Excellency, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Amaechi, for his fatherly role, not only in the State but Nigeria at large. If we have four or five of him in this country, we will see great change.

Mr. Barivule Akpo-Journalist- I believe that people should first think of knowing the administrative process of any organisation or government. I have never experienced situations where a State exists without a budget in any democratic system. Even in a State where emergency is being experienced or is the order of the day, there must be a budget.
Fundamentally, budget is a document that states the income, expenditure, projects and salaries of organisations and government. If the Assembly has been locked up and the legislative process has not been on for sometime, is it a good thing? It is definitely not what is expected of a State like Rivers where we are thinking of fast development, human capacity building, capital projects and the total welfare of the people, including civil servants.
You don’t spend from internally generated revenue. It is not legal anywhere to use internally generated  revenue to pay workers’ salaries. The welfare of the entire civil servants of this State depends on the budget. So you can begin to imagine the fate of the civil servants if the budget is not passed. The budget, no doubt is an integral part of a government, if it must achieve anything meaningful.
It is, therefore, surprising for anyone to imagine that, because the budget was not passed in the assembly, it should be null and void.
Afterall, when renovation work started at the first House of Assembly, the Assembly was moved to the then Obi Wali Integrated Cultural Centre. In the same way, the Hallowed Chambers was under repair.
Also, during the passage of a bill, the essential things to note are whether key House officers are present and whether the procedure does not negate the constitution as well as the rules of the House.
Let me remind us that the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria permits the governor to operate on the previous budget that has been passed by the House six months into the new fiscal year. But even in the present circumstance, the government deemed it necessary to call all stakeholders to come together in order for due process to be followed. Simply put, he the governor is only being magnanimous. When are we, as Rivers people, going to sit and think of how we should develop our State? When are we going to talk about peace? In a state of acrimony, development cannot thrive.
On the whole, I think there is no problem with the passage of the budget, for the sake of the development of the State.

Mr. Godwin Akpan, Public Servant-My opinion is that if the action of the governor is not against any section of the constitution, and for the interest of the State, I think I support the action of the presentation of the budget and the House of Assembly in giving it a speedy passage.
I think, as a lay man, once you g et 2/3 majority of members supporting an action, the action stands. If according to reports, those that received the Bill and passed the budget were 23 in number, it means they were even more than the required 2/3 majority, so it is carried.

Ralph Afangide, legal practitioner-As far as I know, the budget is a legal document, it is just an economic instrument and so the legal requirement must be satisfied before the budget is passed into law. As far as I know, there are stages, processes that must be satisfied, like public hearing, committee sections, first reading, second reading, the commissioners. coming to defend their own sector.
If for instance they budget N12 billion for monorail, the commissioner for transport will be required to come and justify why N12 billion will be spent on monorail. All these requirements were not satisfied in the passage of the recent 2014 budget. What was done was a rubber-stamp: the governor went to the make-shift assembly, presented the budget, and there and then, it was passed the same day by voice vote. Those of the members that were there were APC members who were dancing to the whims and caprices of the governor, the so called anti-Amaechi law makers were not there. I know they will say that they formed a quorum, but if they had genuine intentions of passing this budget, they could have called everybody together and inform everybody of their intention. I don’t know if they passed circular to the other people, I’m not privy to that. But be that as it may, there is a very critical question that we must address, and that is the venue of the meeting in which the budget was passed, which was not the Rivers State House of Assembly. It was a make-shift arrangement in Government House, which means there is now no separation of power between the executive and the legislature.
There is a supreme court judgementconcerning Oyo State, when the Governor of that state was impeached, and the impeachment took place in an hotel room. The supreme court said no, this impeachment cannot stand. You must carry out the impeachment, if the required number of members are there, in the Hallowed chambers. So the question of saying that the doctrine of necessity will not allow us to sit does not arise at all.
When a matter is pending in court, parties must maintain the status quo, and the status quo is that they should not have gone to sit in any place. When they asked the federal house to take over the functions of the state house, did they not think of the doctrine of necessity? That is the question. In any case, that doctrine does not apply in this case and what they have done is that they have opened a can of worms, because the other lawmakers, who were not present in that sitting can decide to go to an hotel or any other place and sit and pass resolutions that may be adverse to the present administration. So this is a very bad precedent that they have set.
The way forward is that they should retrace their steps. As far as I’m concerned, that budget is not a budget in the eyes of the law. I learnt that the PDP is going to court to challenge the legality or otherwise of that budget. If that is done, it would set the financial situation in the State backward. It will therefore mean that salaries will not be paid, as projects may not be embarked upon. But this is a situation that could have been averted in the first instance. So it is the government of the day that invited this problems to themselves. It is a consequent of their action, so they have to face such consequences. The best thing for them to do in the present circumstance is that the stakeholders should all come together, forget about party line, and work as a team.

Godson Owhoji, legal practitioner-Firstly, let me say that whatever is worth doing is worth doing well. Yes there is need to pass the State budget to move the state forward. But it should be done in accordance with the constitution.
However, in this circumstance, what we call doctrine of necessity had not arisen for the House to begin to sit outside the Hallowed chambers.
The Appropriation Bill is one major law that is celebrated by the lawmakers. When such a bill is to be passed, it is usually done in a dignified manner.
For instance, when the Plateau State House of Assembly wanted to impeach their former Governor, the court was against the circumstance it was done and so did not support  it and the impeachment could not hold. So in my personal view, the House sitting outside the legislative chambers to pass the appropriation bill amounting to about N485 billion in less than an hour amounts to a rape of democracy.
There are legislative procedures in the passage. I think we should condemn it. I am also of the opinion that the state should not be held to ransome. It will be better for the Governor, Rt. Hon Chibuike Amaechi to see how he can maintain peace.
If you  think that he is working for the interest of Rivers people, there is need for the legislative arm of government to be functional.
Let me quickly also let you know. In Rivers today, the only arm of the government that is functional is the executive, and in all these crises within the judiciary and legislative arms, the executive arm is fingered. I think it is high time the executive governor began to look at the interest of Rivers State, knowing that the persons that have been accused have been working with him for years.
Under normal circumstance, there’s supposed to be checks and balances between the legislative and executive arms. But where this does not exist, and in a system where the legislative and the judiciary arms are paralysed, the Chief Executive can use his executive fiat to do what he likes, this is anti-democratic.
The executive governor as the chief security officer of the State has the responsibility to ensure peace in the state. In his first tenure, there was peace, but today, there is no chief judge, no House of Assembly, and no legislative arm. Now that the budget has been passed in Government House, will subsequent sittings hold in Government House? The Governor should invite all stakeholders and make peace. They can still come back. The executive governor should initiate this move.
The paramount thing is the interest of people living in the State and Rivers people.