By Umar Muhammad Puma
Lawmaker in the House of Representatives, Rep Ayo Omidiran (APC Osun), has debunked media reports that the All Progressives Congress (APC), asked its me because the House caucus to stall the passage of the 2014 budget if it was not properly scrutinized.
Rep Omidiran made the clarification while fielding questions from the House Press Corps when she appeared at the forum’s “Hot Seat” over the weekend.
According to her, “we were not instructed to delay passage of the 2014 budget unnecessarily, in spite of different interpretations given to the instruction from our party leaders”.
“We have scrutinized the budget at committee level, we have done what we are supposed to do and it does warrant the passage of the budget. Remember, three
months have already passed; we were being blackmailed by some people that APC does not mean well for Nigerians, but we showed the whole country that it is not true”
It would be recalled that the leadership of the APC had directed its members in both the Senate and House of Representatives to block all executives bills of which the 2014 appropriation Bill was the most prominent.
However, on Thursday, April 10 during debate and before the final passage of the budget, it was the Minority Leader in the House, Femi Gbajiabiamila, who saved the day when it was becoming obvious that Kingsley Chinda’s (Rivers PDP) objection to the passage of the budget on technical grounds would have stalled its final passage.
