2016 Budget: Afenifere accuses Buhari of planning another looting ,queries N50bn allocation to NSA's office

Pan-Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, has raised posers over President Muhammadu Buhari’s allocation of N50 billion to the Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) in the 2016 Budget.
The group also described the entire budget, which the President presented to the National Assembly as a national embarrassment and urged the National Assembly to do a thorough job before passing the Appropriation Bill.
In a communiqué issued by its spokesperson, Mr. Yinka Odumakin on Tuesday afternoon after the group’s meeting held at the residence of Afenifere leader, Pa Reuben Fasoranti in Akure, the Ondo State capital, the Yoruba leaders said the budget was not realistic and its process is an embarrassment to the country.
Afenifere stated that budgeting N50 billion for the office of the NSA is another way of looting the nation’s treasury and should not be allowed.
Odumakin said: “There are scandalous expenditures in the budget which cannot be justified, which are not rational and which nobody should think is what we need at this moment. How can a President budget N50 billion for the office of National Security Adviser and another N3.9 billion for the renovation of the Presidential Villa at this time of economic meltdown?
“That a budget will be presented, declared missing without knowing; another one will surface and then the President will now write on the matter. If there were mistakes in the earlier budget presented, the government should have come out clean and say sorry, we made mistakes and we want to correct the errors.
“But more importantly, having gone through the whole budget presented, we have seen many heads in the budget which suggest that either we are not aware of the situation we are in as a country, or we are doing more of what brought us to where we are.
“We therefore call on the National Assembly to properly scrutinise every budget line and ensure that we have a budget that shows that we appreciate where we are as a country and we are doing proper things in ways to bring prudence into the system,” Afenifere said.
The group also called on the Federal Government to restructure the country and diversify the economy because of the dwindling oil revenue in the international market.
Odumakin said: “Diversifying the economy is not possible without restructuring the country. To get out of this economic crisis and for the country not to crumble finally, the Federal Government should immediately restructure the country along the recommendations of the 2014 National Conference.
“Since government is a continuum, the Federal Government should implement the outcome of the report so that the country can create new corridors of prosperity that would take Nigeria out of its current crisis.”
The group however gave total support to the President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corrup¬tion war, saying corruption is evil and it must be thoroughly dealt with but also warned the presidency not to be selective in fighting the anti-corruption war.
“We support the ongoing anti-corruption war by the federal government but we quickly warn that our war against corruption should not be selective, sectional and should be all-embracing and all-compassing and should be fought within the confines of the rule of law,” he stated.
Buhari’s ongoing anti-corruption crusade is centred in the rot in the former NSA’s office where about $2.1 billion meant for arms purchase was stolen by some politicians and military personnel.