Legislators Running Buhari’s Govt – Utomi

By Chuks Ekpeneru

Federal legislators have turned President Muhammadu Buhari and his government into a lame duck and have become more important in the running of government than the executive branch of government, Prof. Pat Utomi has said.

While lamenting the absence of leadership in the country, Utomi described the government of the day as crippled unable to connect to the solutions to the problems of the country.

Utomi said during his appearance on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics.

He said “I think that the government is crippled; it is not connecting to the solution.

The economist added, “If there is anything absent in Nigeria, it is leadership. At every level of our society, there is a failure of leadership.

“Leadership is about connecting to the soul of the people and giving everything sacrificially to lift it up.”

He lamented the absence of viable political class that will enable the government to be responsive to the needs of the people.

Prof Utomi accused the National Assembly of usurping the duties of the ministries.

He said, “There is a total collapse of separation of powers and the legislature has taken over running the executive and the executive is complicit in allowing that to happen.

“Anytime I have been asked to analyse the budget in this country for the last 20 years, I don’t analyse the budget because the budget process in this county is a joke.”

“Today, the House Committee Chair on appropriation is more important to a national budget than the Minister of Finance because this game that is played in the National Assembly means that what comes out is really the budget of the National Assembly, not of the executive branch and the executive branch has refused to engage the matter.

“What is going on today is a hijack of the executive functions by the legislature and for most of them, it is just a game,” he added

According to the professor, some ministers have complained to him that the lawmakers run their budget and their ministries are being run from the National Assembly.

He, however, proposed a constitutional reform that would essentially reduce the legislative branch to the citizen and part-time legislature.

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