REWIND: How 2016 budget was illegally altered after passage by national assembly

In 2016, Muhammadu Buhari as president of Nigeria, vowed that all persons involved in the padding of that year’s national budget would face severe punishment.

Buhari described the alterations to the budget as embarrassing and disappointing, saying the document debated in the national assembly was completely different from what was prepared by the ministry of budget and national planning.

BACKGROUND

The budget controversy began in December 2015 after lawmakers alleged that the document Buhari presented on December 22 had been substituted.

In a letter dated January 19, Buhari told lawmakers that the original document was riddled with errors.

Garba Shehu, then presidential spokesman, said on February 11, 2016, that the government first detected the errors and that Buhari wrote to the national assembly to correct them while welcoming further scrutiny.

On February 15, 2015, Buhari sacked Yahaya Gusau as director-general of the budget office and appointed Tijjani Abdullahi, a former banker, as his replacement.

‘CULPRITS WILL NOT GO UNPUNISHED’

Addressing the Nigerian community in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the president condemned what he described as the distortion of the budget proposals by entrenched interests.

Buhari said throughout his years in public office, he had never encountered budget padding until the 2016 incident.

He said the unauthorised alterations had fundamentally changed the budget from the version he presented to parliament.

Buhari, however, absolved Udo Udoma, former minister of budget and national planning, saying he performed his duties diligently.

“The culprits will not go unpunished,” Buhari said.

“I have been a military governor, petroleum minister, military head of state and headed the Petroleum Trust Fund.

“Never had I heard the words budget padding. Our minister of budget and national planning did a great job with his team.

“The minister became almost half his size during the time, working night and day to get the budget ready, only for some people to pad it.

“What he gave us was not what was finally being debated. It is very embarrassing and disappointing. We will not allow those who did it to go unpunished.”