Budget: PDP raises alarm over plot to arrest lawmakers for booing Buhari
By The PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation has raised the alarm over a plot by the Presidency to arrest lawmakers who booed President Muhammadu Buhari during his 2019 budget presentation to a joint session of the National Assembly last week.
This is just as the campaign organisation has insisted that over 90 percent of the projects listed by the President in the budget as completed projects are untrue.
Buba Galadima, PDP Presidential Campaign Spokesperson, stated this at an interactive session with journalists on Sunday in Abuja.
While stressing that lawmakers are protected by parliamentary immunity by their actions during the budget presentation, Galadima who doubles as National Chairman of the Reformed All Progressives Congress (R-APC) argued that legislators can pelt the President with sachet water if they deem it fit during his presentation.
He said: “President Muhammadu Buhari is a servant of Nigerians. He is occupying that seat by the power of our PVCs. Therefore he cannot be seen as a monarch or as a dictator. Once he subscribes to be a politician he should play by the rules of politics.
“We learnt under an impeccable authority that some of his close aides are meeting and taking names of those supposedly that booed the President in other to frame them either by EFCC or ask the Police to invite them. I don’t know for what purpose.
“For what they had done in parliament, I am saying here that the President’s assertions were full of flaws. If they want, let them come and arrest me. I am not even in parliament. They can’t arrest any parliamentarian for having booed the President on what he thinks is correct that the President misrepresented what had happened in his constituency”.
He described the N1.2 billion donation by farmers to President Buhari for his reelection bid as illegal, adding that the donors have contravened the Electoral Act, 2010 on donation to candidates.
He said the farmers association of which he is a member never endorsed President Buhari, even as he called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to probe the donations.
Galadima therefore called for disqualification of President Buhari for receiving the donations.
“Those who made that contribution and those who received the contribution should be call to book and be arraigned before the appropriate court of law.
“I am a farmer, one of the largest farmers in Nigeria. Around me are also farmers with large investment. We have never sat down as members of farmers association of Nigeria and took a decision that we are supporting President Muhammadu Buhari candidature for a second term in office.
“Therefore, I want to assume that whatever they said about this is a lie. But if is not a lie then it is against the Electoral Act, this now calls for the disqualification of President Muhammadu Buhari as a candidate for the 2019 Presidential elections,” he said.
OWEDE AGBAJILEKE, Abuja