From Onyedi Ojiabor and Sanni Onogu, Abuja
Senate Leader Yahaya Abdullahi has said the National Assembly management had no hands in the N37 billion budgeted for the renovation of the National Assembly this year.
The Senate Leader explained that the lack of maintenance of the National Assembly structures for two decades led to its current dilapidated condition, which makes it compelling for urgent, massive renovation.
Abdullahi told our reporters in Abuja that anybody who has issues with the allocation should direct them to the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) in whose 2020 budget it was made.
Besides the FCDA, the Senate Leader said those who desire to know more about the allocation should take their inquisition to the Presidency who saw the calculations of the FCDA engineers and voted the fund.
The Senate Leader, who is the first principal officer of the National Assembly to explain how the N37 billion renovation allocation came about, also gave details of how the fund is likely to be applied.
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He said: “It is not even renovation; a lot of people don’t even understand what has happened. When we came in by God’s grace and by the grace of our party and our colleagues and they entrusted the leadership of the National Assembly into our hands, we looked into what is there in this (Ninth) Assembly. And part of the responsibility of any leadership is to ensure that there is security within his domain and that the entire structures that were inherited are secured.
“I challenge you to go downstairs, where the wiring of the entire National Assembly is going on today. If you go there, you will see the tangled wires and everything else.
“The structural integrity of a building is not determined by its cleanliness. When you come into that place, you will see that for more than 30 years nobody has done anything about its structural viability. It is clean; many people see it very clean, and things are going on fine and they are saying ‘you don’t need N37 billion for renovation’.
“We did not even vote that money. What we did is that we found out that the place is not secured. First, the Senate President (Ahmed Lawan) called the management and we sat with them in his office. And he asked them: what has happened to the maintenance of this building? They said it has not been maintained for over 20 years.
“Go into the domes of the two chambers and you will find that they have to do felting all the time. Otherwise, the domes are going to collapse, including the main dome.
“Now, if perchance something happens during our leadership and the place collapses or catches fire and senators die or members of the House of Representatives die and some of our workers are dead, it would be absolute negligence on our part, as we have this responsibility.
“So, who has the ultimate responsibility? The President. So, the Senate President and the Speaker ran to the President and told him: ‘Look, sir, the structural integrity of this dome is poor and the chambers can collapse any time.’
“…So, we went and reported to the President and he asked if we had reported to the FCDA, which is maintaining the building.
“They said the FCDA complained that the management of the National Assembly, overtime, took over the responsibility of doing the maintenance. Apparently, they were taking the money for the maintenance without doing the work.
“It is not the National Assembly that voted N37 billion. If there is anybody who wants to query the N37 billion, let him go and ask the FCDA and their engineers why they are asking for N37 billion. It is not us; it is not even in our budget. It is the budget of the FCDA…”
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