The Upper House, which described Obasanjo’s remarks as unfortunate and a deliberate attempt to denigrate the institution, demanded proofs from him.
At the public presentation of the autobiography of Justice Mustapha Akanbi in Abuja on Wednesday, Obasanjo had said that NASS was largely an assemblage of “looters and thieves.”
He said by their corrupt acts, NASS members had destroyed their oversight functions by collecting bribes from Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs.
In its reaction yesterday, the Senate, through a statement issued by its spokesman, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, said it was unfortunate that the former President would distort the issue of constituency projects as meaning a direct monetary advance to lawmakers and thus amounting to the “promotion of corruption” by NASS.
Abaribe said the most unfortunate in the deliberate diatribe against the National Assembly, was Obasanjo’s allegation that the lawmakers were “siphoning public funds through what they call ‘constituency projects’.”
The allegation, as spurious as it were, he said, was very distant from the truth, adding that if it were so, the former President would not have tolerated such for the period he was the country’s foremost leader.
“President Obasanjo, for the avoidance of doubt, was the initiator of constituency projects in the year 2000 as a means of ensuring that projects were fairly spread across the country using the Senatorial zones as the springboard.
“To ensure execution of the projects, former President Obasanjo, again factored the constituency projects into the annual budgets to be implemented by the Executive arm of government depending on the availability of funds. That is to say that no lawmaker ever comes close to the funds or even determines the contractor for the said projects or when the said contract would be awarded.
“So, it looks curious and surprising that Obasanjo would turnaround after over 10 years of initiating such a project to allege that the National Assembly is performing the function of both the Executive and the Parliament.
“Is it not preposterous for anybody to believe that members of the National Assembly would, against the provisions of the Constitution with regards to application of separation of powers, award contracts ‘to their agents to execute’ and expect the Presidency under a President Obasanjo or any other President for that matter to pay for what they are not part of?
“Such allegation stands logic on its head, as it amounts to an indictment of the Presidency for willfully contravening the budget laws by ceding its power to execute to the National Assembly, if it was the case,” Abaribe said.
The Senate, therefore, challenged the former President to go a step further to furnish Nigerians with details of how the National Assembly members became executors of the national budget rather than being lawmakers.
“It will also help to clear the allegation once and for all, if any Presidency official, not only from the time past but currently, could come forward and explain the true position of the so-called constituency projects. Doing so would at least set the records straight,” he argued.
Abaribe cautioned political leaders to be wary of the “consequences to our democracy of dragging the revered institution of lawmaking to public odium just to score some political point.”
Meanwhile, Afenifere Leader and National Leader of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, has said that Obasanjo lacks the moral justification to accuse President Goodluck Jonathan’s government of corruption while he soiled his hands more than any corrupt leader in Nigeria.
He accused Obasanjo of contributing to over 70 percent of the woes now facing the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
Speaking at the launch of SDP in Lagos yesterday, Adebanjo said the former President would end up exposing his flaws if he continues to accuse President Jonathan of corruption when he assumed office as a pauper in 1999 and left in 2007 as a multi-billionaire.
Adebanjo said: “What did Obasanjo have before 1999? How much did he have in his account? But now, he has a university, hotels, several companies and farms across the country; yet he is claiming to be a saint, having the effrontery to allege some politicians are corrupt. If not for the patch-it system they were running, he should have been docked by now.
“Obasanjo, who claimed to be a millionaire today was reimbursed by his deputy, Atiku Abubakar, Otunba Fasawe and some notable Nigerians before he could contest because he had ran into bankruptcy before then and today, he is flowing in stolen Nigeria’s billions.”
The Afenifere leader maintained that Obasanjo forced many Nigerian to donate to the multi-billion naira library he now owns and paid many of the donors back with the country’s oil blocs; yet he claims to be innocent, thinking Nigerians have forgotten.
“We must rise against corruption and it is only the Progressives that can do that. It is a system we inherited from our mentor, father and leader, the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo not the one former Lagos State Governor, Bola Tinubu and his corrupt men use to deceive people. The real progressive men are now in the SDP, it is the only party that can educate Nigeria on how to move forward,” he said.
The party’s National Chairman, Chief Olu Falae, who handed over to the Lagos State Chairman of the SDP, Mr. Reuben Osula and Chief Supo Shonibare, stressed that party would contest every position in the forthcoming elections because it has what it takes to deliver Nigeria from its inherent crises.
Obasanjo had at the same event accused President Jonathan of making direct payments to the legislature to cover up his corrupt acts.
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