The Peoples Democratic Party has called on the National Assembly to impeach President Muhammadu Buhari for what it described as various constitutional breaches, especially the submission of two versions of the 2016 budget proposal.
The National Working Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party made the call on Thursday in a statement by its Acting National Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus.
It asked the National Assembly to thoroughly investigate what it described as a shameful act, including what it called the distortion and banding of figures to accommodate personal interest.
“We therefore call on the National Assembly to commence the impeachment of President Muhammadu Buhari for the various constitutional breaches especially the submission of two versions of the 2016 budget,” the party stated.
The PDP asked the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, to resign for allegedly plunging “the country’s currency policy into chaos, an action that has thrown investors into total confusion.”
It also asked the Ministers of Finance, Budget and National Planning and the Presidential Adviser on National Assembly to resign, saying they had failed to provide the much-needed capacity in the management of the nation’s economy, which he said resulted in the crashing of the nation’s currency to as low as N305 to a dollar.
The Senate had on Thursday accused the executive of smuggling copies of a doctored version of the 2016 Appropriation Bill into the upper chamber of the National Assembly.
The Senate stated this while discussing the report of its Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions, which it set up to investigate the alleged disappearance of the budget.
The Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki, after a two-hour executive session with his colleagues, explained that the upper chamber deliberated extensively on the report of the committee behind closed doors
At the plenary, Saraki said the committee, in its report, revealed that the Senate had in its possession two versions of the 2016 budget proposal.
According to him, the first version is the hard copy submitted by President Muhammadu Buhari while the second is a different version produced and brought into the Senate by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Senator Ita Enang.
He noted that if the Presidency wanted to amend the initial version of the bill that was submitted to the National Assembly, there were proper legislative channels to do so.
Saraki said, “Our findings revealed that Senator Ita Enang, the SSA to the President on NASS Matters, printed copies of the 2016 Appropriation Bill and brought them to the Senate. We have discovered that what he brought was different from the version presented to us by Mr. President.
“We have resolved to consider only the version presented by Mr. President as soon as we receive the soft copies of the original document from the Executive.”
The Chairman, Senate Committee on National Identity, Senator Kabiru Marafa, however, faulted the argument of some of his colleagues that two versions of the 2016 budget, were available in the Senate.
Marafa, in an interview with journalists in his office on Thursday, challenged the Senate leadership to make the two versions of the 2016 budget available to members of the public or identify the differences.
He denied Enang’s culpability in the alleged smuggling of the doctored document into the Senate, adding that such action was impossible.
Marafa added, “I don’t understand what is playing out. We started with one problem and we are ending with another problem. Today, we say there are two versions, the procedure of laying budget is very clear.
“President Muhammadu Buhari laid the budget in December. If somebody says there are two versions, where is the second version and when did we have procedure of collecting budget from SSA? We have procedure. I think it is very necessary to differentiate what is fake from original.”
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