Buhari Budgets N254bn For 2019 Polls …Seeks NASS’ Approval …As PDP Warns President Ahead Of Election Next Year

President Muhammadu Buhari has sent a supplementary budget to the National Assembly for consideration for the conduct of 2019 general elections.
In letter to the Senate, titled “Request for virement and supplementary 2018 budget’’ Buhari said Nigeria would need N254billion to prosecute the 2019 general election.
The president urged the approval of the sum which he said would be drawn from both the 2018 and 2019 budgets.
Buhari appealed to the National Assembly to remove projects earlier inserted into the budget and replace them with priority projects as contained in the original bill.
While assenting to the 2018, Buhari noted that the National Assembly made cuts amounting to N347 billion in the allocations to 4,700 projects submitted to them and introduced 6,403 projects of their own amounting to N578billion.
Also contained in the letter is the supplementary budget of N242billion (N242,445,322, 600) to fund six agencies in the 2019 general election.
Of the total sum, N164billion (N164,104,792,065) will be drawn from the 2018 supplementary budget while N78billion (N78,314,530,535) will form part of the 2019 budget of these agencies.
Buhari’s letter requesting for virement and supplementary 2018 budget reads: “As you are aware, the 2019 general election is scheduled to be conducted early in 2019. To ensure that adequate arrangements are made for free and fair election, it has become necessary to appropriate funds to enable the relevant agencies to commence preparations.”
The President had in June disclosed that he was going to send a supplementary budget after raising concerns about some of the changes made by lawmakers in the 2018 budget.
He said that the supplementary/amendment budget will solve some critical issues which he hopes “the National Assembly will be able to expeditiously consider.”
Some of the issues raised by the President include the reduction of allocation for the provision of security infrastructure in the 104 Unity Schools across the country by N3billion at a time when securing the students against acts of terrorism ought to be a major concern for the government.
According to the President, he signed the bill into law in order not to further slow down the pace of Nigeria’s economic recovery.
On June 20, 2018, President Buhari, signed the 2018 budget but criticised the National Assembly for reducing allocations for some projects and including thousands of projects into the budget without consultation with the Executive.
He said, “The National Assembly made cuts amounting to N347billion in the allocations to 4,700 projects submitted to them for consideration and introduced 6,403 projects of their own amounting to N578billion.
“Many of the projects cut are critical and may be difficult, if not impossible, to implement with the reduced allocation”.
Meanwhile, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has warned President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) not to “mistake the rigging in Ekiti as acceptance by Nigerians”.
PDP warned that it will not allow such rigging during the 2019 Presidential election.
The opposition party said it was “shameful for President Muhammadu Buhari, who claims to be an anti-corruption champion, to glee over acts of electoral corruption that can truncate our democratic process.”
In a statement by its spokesperson, Kola Ologbondiyan, the opposition party said it found as strange that President Buhari could not “condemn the emasculation and subversion of the will of Ekiti people and the stealing of another party’s victory by brute force.”
PDP also noted the “unsavoury statements by the Presidency, celebrating the subjugation of Ekiti people as a stamp for President Buhari, wherein it further boasted of a triumph for the President in the 2019 general election.”
The statement reads, “If for President Buhari and the APC, the subjugation of the people, as witnessed in Ekiti, amounts to an election, then the nation is headed to a serious crisis, as such will be resisted with all legitimate force available within our laws in the defence of our nation’s democracy.
“The APC and INEC must note that what happened in Ekiti, as a single state, cannot be pulled through in a general election, especially where the people have made up their minds to seek a new president.
“Nigeria is too big and too complex to be subjugated by a single individual or group of individuals, as any attempt to do so will definitely consume the conspirators.
“Moreover, while we are still pursuing the recovery of our stolen mandate in Ekiti, we state in very strong terms that this will be the last time the PDP will, under any circumstance whatsoever, allow itself to be manipulated out at the polls at any level.
“Finally, the PDP urges all our members and supporters to continue to remain calm over the daylight robbery that happened in Ekiti state, despite the provocations by the APC and the Presidency, as our leaders’ concert effort to ensure that justice is done.”