Shut Up, Ita Enang
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“The 2017 budget will be transmitted to Mr president and the President will assent to the budget. The acting President is in office and when the budget is transmitted, it will go through the processes and all those other questions will answer itself”
—- Senator Ita Enang, SSA to the President on National Assembly Matters, talking on Channels Television
This is nothing short of a political howler coming from a man who was a Senator and House of Reps member. The other day it was Information, Culture and Tourism Minister Lai Mohammed who told the same Channels Television that the matter of who signs the 2017 Budget would be “resolved” when the National Assembly transmits it to the Presidency. I had condemned Lai Mohammed for playing to the gallery. Now it is Ita Enang.
But if Minister Lai Mohammed can be pardoned for displaying such ignorance, Ita Enang should not. For God’s sake he was a law maker;
Listen Ita Enang and Lai Mohammed, Prof Yemi Osinbajo is at this moment the Acting President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. Osinbajo will sign the 2017 Budget, he has the power and authority to do so for as long as President Muhammadu Buhari is unavailable and has not communicated to the Senate that he has resumed his duties as President. The Provision of Section 145 (1) of the 1999 Constitution is clear enough for anybody to understand.
As Acting President, Prof Osinbajo has the power to do anything the President can do. He can even reshuffle the cabinet if he so wishes without conferring with President Buhari, although courtesy demands that he confers with the President. But if he chooses not to, he is perfectly in order. That is the position of the constitution. It was not Buhari who made Osinbajo Acting President; the Constitution did.
So Ita Enang, Lai Mohammed and their like had better face the fact that President Buhari cannot sign any official document insofar as he is still on medical vacation, and has not communicated to the Senate that he has resumed his duties. In fact, it will be illegal for him to sign any official document, including the 2017 Budget, when he is still on medical vacation.
Enang and Lai Mohammed should stop heating up the polity please.
