Deji Elumoye in Abuja



The Senate will today (Tuesday) deliberate on the N53.6 billion that has been earmarked for the security agencies to prosecute the February 2019 general elections.

The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Danjuma Goje, will at plenary this morning present the report of the committee for the larger house to debate and possibly approve the budget estimate.

The Senate had last Thursday approved N189.207 billion election budget for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), ahead of the February 2019 polls with a proviso that that the amount should be vired from the Special Intervention Programme as captured in the Service Wide Votes of the 2018 Appropriation Act.

Also last Thursday, the National Assembly ‘s Joint Committee had met with heads of affected security agencies with a view to approving the N53.6 billion election budget proposal they presented to the National Assembly .

The committee headed by Senator Goje had directed the heads of security agencies present to hold Executive Sessions with Chairmen of Committees on Security and Intelligence, Police and Interior.

The security chiefs thereafter met with Chairman of Committee on Interior, Senator Andy Uba; Security and Intelligence, Shaba Lafiagi and that of Police, Senator Abu Ibrahim, in their respective offices at the Senate Building.

The committee as at yesterday afternoon was still meeting with a view to fine tuning the election budget proposals of the security agencies before presenting it at plenary today.

The breakdown of the N53.6 billion election budget for security agencies include N4.28 billion for the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA); Department of State Services (DSS) N12.25 billion; Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps N3.57billion; Nigeria Police Force N30.54billion and Nigeria Immigration Service N2.62billion.

Pussynometer:

nnadychuks:
One thing that you must understand in this country is that APC runs boko haram and PDP runs fulani herdsmen. Just see, now that it's certain PDP might win, fulani herdsmen have become cold and boko haram now killing people again. We can't do anything. More people might die next year. We'll remain pawns of the game if we depend on the government for anything.

rxmusa:
INSIGHTFUL NIGERIANS KNOW THAT THE LEGISLOOTERS ARE AMONG THE PEOPLE FRUSTRATING THE PRESIDENT'S EFFORTS.

Instead of them to deliberate in a swift and patriotic way, they will be deliberating on how-to-pad-every-budget philosophy.

He is being accused of obstinate dogmatism, some said he is insensitive and a religious bigot and ethnic jingoist, yet he remains stoic without pandering to the expectation of the naysayers. Never for once has this man spoke from the mosque, yet we call him an Islamic 'agendaist'. We remember how GEJ used every church podium to address the nation, yet he wasn't accused of christianizing the nation. For Buhari, it is always a forced ascription.

We accuse the man of populating the nation's security architecture with only northerners but praise the western domination of our economic team.

We accuse the man of nepotism yet non of his children are holding any position. What exactly is the fault of this man? Beyond the blanket generalization of he has failed, can you in specifics, list out his area of failure?

You have a president without an oil well, no private jet and ownership of shares in our national asset yet you vilify him? Do you prefer a man who left the prison with barely 20k but now rich if not richer than Nigeria?

You can accuse president Muhammadu Buhari of slow decision taking effort certainly not of unfair dispensation of the nation's resources. He is too guided by conscience to treat Nigerians in unequaled template. The man has nothing to gain by changing from a good man to a bad man in his 70s.

Let not our personal biases and prejudices push us to vilify an innocent man who is doing everything possible to right the wrong of governance.

Frankly musing