The intractable crisis rocking the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for months officially crept into governance on Tuesday, literally putting the nation on hold, after President Goodluck Jonathan abandoned the presentation of the 2014 budget to avoid being heckled by lawmakers opposed to his decisions in the party.
The Presidency has said that the delay is to avoid any unnecessary acrimony that usually trails budget passage.
Lawmakers supporting the breakaway faction, led by Abubakar Baraje, planned to heckle the president while making a presentation of the budget to a joint session of the Senate andHouse of Representatives, several members confirmed Tuesday.
The legislators, numbering over 50, are among party members critical of the president and the Bamanga Tukur-led PDP, asking that Mr Tukur be removed from office. The members said their plan for Tuesday was to serve as a reply to how the chairman of their faction, Mr Baraje, was treated by lawmakers supporting the president and Mr Tukur, during a September visit by Mr Baraje.
Members, speaking anonymously, said such reaction to the president would have predictably prompted a response from the president’s supporters with the likelihood of the situation degenerating into security threat for Mr Jonathan – the possible reason the president suspended the presentation.
The gospel according to Jonathan
But in his communication to the National Assembly early Tuesday as the two chambers awaited his arrival, the president said he acted due to the failure of the Senate and the House to harmonise the crude oil benchmark for the 2014 budget.
“However, considering the fact that, whereas the Distinguished Senate has approved the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) based on a benchmark of $76.5 per barrel, the Honourable House of Representatives has used a benchmark of $79 per barrel, it is infeasible for me to present the budget in the absence of a harmonised position on the MTEF,” the president said. “In the circumstance, it has become necessary to defer the presentation of the 2014 Budget to a Joint Session of the National Assembly until such a time when both respected chambers would have harmonised their positions on the MTEF. It is my hope that this will be in the shortest possible time.”
No law requires the two chambers to adopt a common position on the benchmark before the budget is presented by the president.
The Presidency also said that the delay was to avoid any unnecessary acrimony that usually trailed budget passage. Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Reuben Abati, told journalists that the Presidency was against an over bloated 2014 budget.
This is an indication that federal lawmakers are seeking increased spending for next year, as Nigeria moves towards both presidential and parliamentary elections in 2015. Though the details of the budget are yet to be made public, it was gathered that Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is said to be proposing a curb in public expenditure in the 2014 budget.
‘Not true,’ says Reps
The House of Representatives suggested the president’s reasons were untrue. Chairman of the House Committee on Media, Zakary Mohammed, said past budgets had been submitted and deliberated upon without the two chambers agreeing as the president wanted to do this time.
Breakaway faction of the PDP including the lawmakers have accused the leadership of the party, which the president supports, of high-handedness and being dictatorial
“If we go by the laws, the blame is elsewhere not here,” he said. “The MTEF is supposed to be presented six months before start of a new fiscal year. And September (that the president presented the MTEF) is not six months. For a start, in 2011 and 2012, the chambers passed different versions of the oil benchmark but the budgets were still presented.”
The development on Tuesday was the clearest indication how the PDP’s crisis, which began August, and has defied reconciliation, is seeping into governance.
The breakaway faction, including the lawmakers, accuse the leadership of the party, which the president supports, of high-handedness and being dictatorial. They demand that the chairman, Mr Tukur be sacked, while President Jonathan suspends his planned ambition for re-election in 2015.
The presentation of the budget was suspended indefinitely with the tendency to force another round of delayed budget passage and implementation on the nation.
A little bit of arm twisting
The Senate had earlier rejected the president’s oil benchmark of $74 per barrel, raising it up to $76.50 per barrel; while the House of Representatives, on the other hand, had rejected the $74 per barrel and raised it to $79, while approving daily oil production of 2.388mbpd, 2.5007mbpd and 2.5497mbpd for 2014, 2015 and 2016 respectively as proposed by the president.
The 2013 budget, which was passed in good time, could not be approved for over three months, because of horse-trading and haggling between the executive and legislative arms of government over what should or should not be removed from the budget. The president had finally assented to the budget, however, complaining that the document was replete with land mines.
Mr Abati said that the Presidency will cause the budget to be laid before the National Assembly “as soon as the harmonisation is concluded”.
A little bit of politics
The Chief Political Adviser to the President, Ahmed Gulak, while also speaking with journalists on the issue, rebuffed claims that Mr Jonathan was avoiding the National Assembly over alleged plans by members loyal to breakaway faction of the PDP to embarrass the president.
He also advised aggrieved members of the party to seek redress through appropriate channels or honourably leave the party.
“This is not true; first, the president is not scared of any body, and secondly, the PDP is one strong united party and as such no one can embarrass the president in the National Assembly,” he said. “These people are not on ground. They do not even know how to do political calculation properly. They should stay in their states and develop it and make impact in their respective states instead of doing things that will not profit them.”