Senate Will Protect Iyabo From EFCC, Senate Claims

The Senate yesterday stood its grounds, insisting that the chairperson of its Committee on Health, Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, is innocent of the corruption charges brought against her by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

Consequently, the Senate promised to protect her from unnecessary harassment and intimidation by the anti-financial crimes commission.

The Senate had, through Obasanjo-Bello's lawyer, Chief Afe Babalola, requested Senate president David Mark to prevail on the EFCC not to arrest her over the N10 million her committee collected from the Ministry of Health.

The committee had agreed to have participated in the sharing of the money.
Addressing Senate reporters yesterday, Senator Eze insisted that their colleague Iyabo was not found wanting in any way.

He noted that when the Senate listened to her, they came to the conclusion that she was neither culpable nor found wanting of any misconduct and that if due process was followed she would have no questions to answer.

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Obasanjo has now garnered the support of the senate in hiding from the EFCC. It seems, though, that if she is truly innocent, she would not be hiding. If she was not involved with the corruption, she should go before the EFCC, and they should bring a legal end to this.

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Nigeria parliament passes 2008 budget, spending up

Nigeria's National Assembly passed a final version of the 2008 budget on Wednesday that foresees a 21 percent hike in proposed expenditure and an even sharper increase on what the government actually spent last year.

The Senate and House of Representatives, which had passed slightly different versions of the budget last week, reconciled their figures and adopted the 2.89 trillion naira total spending proposed by the upper chamber.

The harmonised bill will now be sent to President Umaru Yar'Adua for final approval. He had originally proposed an annual spending figure of 2.45 trillion naira.

To increase the amount of money available to be spent in this year's budget, the lawmakers revised upwards the benchmark oil price to $59 per barrel from $53.83 in the executive's original bill.

The Senate had said the additional spending was "committed to the provision of water, roads, power, enhancement of social services such as education and healthcare delivery".

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Although the budjet has not been approved by Yar'Adua, a 20% increase in spending is quite signifigant. The addition is supposed to help provide more quality public goods and services, and the Nigerian people may appriciate the extra spending. Hopefully, this new budjet, and the higher oil prices from Nigeria do result in added stability and satisfaction with the Nigerian Government.

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Senate Leader Rules out Three Term Presidency in Revised Constitution

The National Assembly would not consider any proposition for three terms for executive office holders in the lawmakers' new move to amend the 1999 Constitution.

Senate Majority Leader, Teslim Folarin, who disclosed this in an interview in Abuja yesterday, stated that since Nigerians had demonstrated their opposition to that attempt, the Senate would not give it a thought again.

His words: "We have to realise that politics is very dynamic; politics is very fluid. At the time it was an issue, I personally think it is not an issue now. It was very clear that the country does not want that. It will not make any sense to bring it back."

Folarin stated that the Senate would ensure that clauses to be amended were restricted to a manageable level, adding that the last exercise failed because the items for amendment were too many.

On the allegation by Senator Nuhu Aliyu that there were fraudsters in the National Assembly, Folarin said the senator was known for such allegations and as such Nigerians should not take him seriously.

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This story demonstrates the capability of the Nigerian government to respond to popular demand. After so many stories about the corruption and incompetance of Nigerian leaders, a manifestation of a working democracy is refreshing.
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Bill Proposing High Level Pay Raises Passed by the Senate

A chart showing the exchange rate between the Naira and the British Pound

With the conclusion of work and passage of the Bill to amend the Certain Political, Public and Judicial Office Holders (Salaries and Allowances) Act, by the Senate yesterday, a legal backing has now been given to the new pay packages for the President, his deputy and other senior officials of the Bench.

The President's salary, according to the Bill, has now been raised from N1,405,882.00 to N3,514,705.00 while that of the Vice President goes up to N3,031, 572.00 from N1,212,629.00. The Chief Justice will earn N3,363,972.00 while a Justice of the Supreme Court and the President of the Court of Appeal will take N2,477,110.00. A Justice of the Court of Appeal will get N1, 995, 430.00.

The decision to increase the salaries was taken after an exhaustive deliberation on a report presented to that effect by the Chairman of the Senate Committee on National Planning, Economic Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Senator Zainab Kure.According to her, the upward review was in harmony with submissions made by RMAFC. She pointed out that the issue of salaries was dynamic and as such it was supposed to be reviewed from time to time.

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The raise that was probably well merited, judging by the chart shown above. The chart show that more and more Naira are needed to make one pound, thus denoting inflation. To retain the same standar of living, salaries must be increases on a regular basis. This certainly does not explain all of the larger salary, though. The remaining amount of the more than doubled salaries may or may not be justified, and the ambiguous explanation does not shed any light on the matter.
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