Federal Legislators Boo Buhari At Budget Presentation

BY AMOS DUNIA, ABUJA – What ought to be a usual Budget presentation with funfair by President Muhammadu Buhari, on Wednesday turned out to become a venue for the test of wits and campaign arena for legislators of both the opposition and ruling political parties at a joint session of the National Assembly.

While presenting the 2019 Appropriation Bill, President Buhari was listing his administration’s achievements, when the shouts of “Nooooo, Noooo, Noooo! rented the air and took over the chamber for a while.

Accordingly, the mood of the lawmakers soon changed and charged. Unfortunately, before the President could realized it, the atmosphere became tensed as nearly every paragraph he read was met with intermittent interruption by protesting lawmakers.

The attempt by the All Progressives Congress (APC), lawmakers to hit back by cheering President Buhari, who tried to reel out his points only succeeded to worsen the already bad situation as more choruses of “Noooo” took over the air space.

Unfortunately, the Majority Leaders of the Senate and House of Representatives failed woefully to take control of the situation just as the Chief Whips of the two chambers were nowhere to be found with the chamber.

The only thing was that was not witnessed and tactically avoided was the exchange of fisticuffs and tearing of each other’s dresses.

The President’s first statement that drew the attention of the lawmakers that led to their booing him was when he said; “We have weathered the storms and made progress on every front,”.

This was followed by screams by the lawmakers that shouted in a chorus; “Nooooo! Wooooo! Noooo!”

Again, when President Buhari said; “The economy has recovered well,”

The further exacerbated the already bad situation which expectedly attracted a louder voice protest from the lawmakers who became rowdy and shouting continuously “Noooooo! Nooooo! Nooooo! Liar! Campaign speech!”

A visibly jolted President Buhari, was quite unimpressed and displeased with the development and had to say; “The world is watching us and we are supposed to be above this.” Unfortunately, his subtle plea fell on deaf ears as the lawmakers continued the shouting protests.

When the shouting protest was dying down, it was further woken up when President Buhari said that his administration had made huge success in the anti-corruption campaign. It was like adding petrol to fire.

At the end of the Appropriation Bill presentation by the President, attempts by the President of the Senate, Dr Bukola Saraki to calm the nerves of the legislators in order to allow Speaker Yakubu Dogara give a vote of thanks as is customary, failed to scale through as the lawmaker from mainly two camps became uncontrollable, a development that led to the National Anthem to be played by the band from the Guards Brigade of the Nigeria Army which the event to an abrupt close.