The speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara has accused the National Leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu of operating a fascist agenda in the running of the country.
This latest tirade is in a response to Senator Tinubu’s allegation that the two presiding officers of the National Assembly of engage in budget impropriety.
The Speaker in his response said, “We do not expect Asiwaju Tinubu to dwell on brazen mendacity, much less murder facts and decorum in his rabid bid to justify his patently clear fascist agenda of controlling all levers of power in Nigeria.”
Dogara also accused the APC leader of having a “wayward lust for power”.
The Speaker gave the response on Tuesday in a statement by his special adviser on Media and Public Affairs, Turaki Hassan.
Senate President Bukola Saraki had on Monday replied Tinubu. He said it is “unfortunate” that after 22 months in the legislature, Tinubu does “not have a better understanding of how the legislature works”.
“Since we have taken it for granted that Tinubu’s attack on Saraki every three months (quarterly) will come as expected, we would just have ignored his statement but for the fact that it was filled with untruth, fallacies and misrepresentations,” Mr Saraki’s office said. “It is unfortunate that a man like Tinubu who had been in the Senate (though for 22 months and under a military regime) should not have a better understanding of how the legislature works.”
Dogara, in his reaction, challenged the APC national leader to provide evidence to back his allegations.
“We advise Asiwaju Tinubu to be circumspect in his use of language. In this case, he spoke as a spokesperson of depravity,” Dogara said.
“Our reaction must, therefore, be seen as a provoked counter-punch. Anyone can descend into the gutter if he so wishes but no one has a monopoly of gutter language.”
“We won’t run an adult day care centre anymore on matters like this,” he added.
Dogara restated his view that the National Assembly “is not a rubber stamp parliament” and therefore “reserves the right, working cooperatively with the Executive to interrogate projects unilaterally inserted by the Executive branch without the input of or consultation with Parliament.”
He also queried Tinubu’s academic qualifications, saying: “The legislature cannot be accused of padding a budget it has unquestionable constitutional power to review. The budget is a law and the Executive does not make laws.”
“Therefore, it’s only the ignorant and those who hold dubious academic certificates that say the maker of a document has padded the document that only he can constitutionally make.
“In the words of his lordship, Hon Justice Gabriel Kolawole of the Federal High court, in suit No.FHC/ABJ/CS/259/2014 delivered on March 9, 2016, ‘the National Assembly was not created by drafters of the Constitution and imbued with the powers to receive ‘budget estimates’ which the first defendant is constitutionally empowered to prepare and lay before it, as a rubber stamp parliament.”
