2024 Budget: Tinubu submitted flash drive, Doguwa replies colleague

Hon. Alhassan Ado Doguwa representing Doguwa/Tundun Wada Federal Constituency in Kano, has reacted to claims by one of his colleagues who claimed that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu presented empty boxes of the 27.5 trillion 2024 budget proposal to the joint session of lawmakers.

Doguwa said, Tinubu submitted a flash-drive containing details of the budget to the leadership of the joint chambers and dismissed claims by his colleague.

CAPITAL POST earlier reported that a member representing Gwaram Federal Constituency in Jigawa State and who is an opposition lawmaker of the New Nigeria Political Party, NNPP, Hon. Yusuf Galambi in an interview with the BBC Hausa service claimed that President Tinubu submitted empty boxes of the budget proposal.

The lawmaker said, Tinubu’s action was averse to the tradition where the President ought to have presented a hard copy of the budget proposal after his speech in boxes adorned with the nation’s official colour of green white green, lamenting that the leadership of the upper and lower legislative chambers were presented with empty boxes.

The concerned lawmaker cited breach of the constitution and said, this was the first time such abnormality was happening.

“We checked the case of the document he presented and found it empty. In the history of the National Assembly, such an incident has never happened until this year and this is not what the constitution of the country said should be done.”

Reacting on Friday in Abuja, Hon. Doguwa who is known for his controversy, explained that the leadership of the upper and lower legislative chambers got full budget submission in a flash-drive, insisting that nothing was wrong with that.

39“What people don’t know is that President Tinubu had since submitted a flash drive of the whole budget before his presentation to the joint chambers,” Doguwa revealed.

He described suggestions that the legislators only got empty 2023 budget documents as “baseless” and “unfounded.”

Doguwa clarified that as customary, Tinubu provided hard copies of his speech along with the flash drive containing soft copies of the full appropriation bill and estimates.