Barring any last-minute change of mind, Lagos lawmakers backed by power-brokers in the state are hatching another ‘ugly first’ on outgoing Governor Akinwunmi Ambode to deny him the privilege of signing the 2019 budget of N873.5 billion, BusinessDay has been told.
The budget consists of N479.691 billion capital expenditure and recurrent expenditure of N393.841 billion. The lawmakers passed the budget on April 29, after raising it from N852.317 billion originally presented to the House by Ambode in February, but have refused to transmit it back to the governor for assent.
Ambode has six days in office as he is constitutionally bound to exit power and hand over to his successor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, on May 29, 2019.
The lawmakers, BusinessDay gathered, are working in tandem with the leadership of the party, All Progressives Congress (APC), in the state to ensure that Ambode goes down in history as the first governor of Lagos State since 1999 who would not sign a budget prepared by his administration.
This new tag on Ambode would be in addition to being the first governor in Lagos to have been denied the support of the leadership of his party to clinch a second term in office in 20 years of Nigeria’s unbroken democracy.
His predecessors, Bola Tinubu, who is the national leader of the ruling APC, and Babatunde Fashola, minister of power, works and housing, did first and second terms in office and signed all their budgets.
Although neither the constitution of the party nor the 1999 federal constitution guarantees automatic second term in office for a political office holder, including a state governor, in Lagos, the power-brokers told Ambode in clear terms he could not seek a second term, a directive the outgoing governor rebuffed.
Adetokunbo Mumuni, a legal practitioner and executive director, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), had told BusinessDay in an interview that if for any reason the outgoing governor does not sign the budget before exiting office on May 29, the incoming governor would have to sign it fast upon assumption of office to avoid a constitutional crisis.
Although the elections have come and gone, political developments in the state suggest lingering animosity as members of the House of Assembly, believed to be loyal to the power-brokers, have not come clean on why they are sitting on the 2019 budget more than three weeks after passing it.
Until the budget is assented, it cannot be implemented, as it will amount to a breach of the constitution to draw from the budget.
Though the previous budget (2018) subsists till end of May, the delay of the 2019 appropriation law, coming from an election year, is taking a toll on general governance in Nigeria’s economic hub.
Efforts to get Mudaishiru Obasa, speaker of the House, and Funmilayo Tejuosho, chairman, House Committee on Information and Strategy, to comment on the issue have been unsuccessful as both did not pick calls or reply to text messages sent to their cell phones yesterday.
When contacted by BusinessDay, a member of the state executive council lamented that the budget, though passed by the House, was yet to be transmitted to Governor Ambode.
JOSHUA BASSEY
