The House of Representatives on Thursday came down hard on a former Minister of Education, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, saying her recent attack on the National Assembly shows “someone plagued by an out-of-office syndrome”.
Ezekwesili had accused the legislators of spending N1 trillion in the last eight years, challenging them to organise a public hearing on their earnings.
But in a statement, the Deputy Chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Hon. Victor Afam Ogene, said the attack on the House was part of the conscious efforts on the part of the former Minister to get back into national consciousness as a moral crusader.
Ogene posited that the accusation was “anchored on wrong deployment of figures, weird generalizations and outright falsehood”.
The House wondered why Ezekwesili chose to believe the figure rolled out by the Economist rather than the nation’s Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission, adding that the percentage of the National Assembly budget is insignificant compared to the entire budget.
The statement reads in part: “There appears to be no let-up in the crave by former Education Minister, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili, to get back into national consciousness, simply by randomly throwing pot shots anchored on misplaced aggression, in the ardent hope that such mudslinging would elevate her to the status of a moral crusader.
“Nigerians would remember that in the course of a similar misadventure, in January 2013, Mrs. Ezekwesili had made wild claims bordering on the alleged frittering of $45 billion of the country’s external reserves, and $22 billion in the excess crude account.
“While she is yet to fully justify those allegations, the former Minister is this time seeking a fresh sparring partner in the Legislature.
“If it were not so, why would an address which centered on a ‘cost of governance in NIgeria’ be curiously limited to an inquest into the operations of the National Assembly, leaving out the other two arms and arriving at the rather simplistic suggestion of the introduction of a unicameral or part-time legislature as the panacea of all Nigeria’s problems.
“What is the percentage of the National Assembly’s N150 billion allocation in a budget of N4.9 trillion? Is it right to insinuate that the budgetary allocation for the National Assembly is for “members salaries and allowances”, while deliberately leaving out capital projects component, salaries of legislative aides and the bureaucracy, as well as allied institutions such as Institute for Legislative Studies, NILS?
“What is the total disbursement to the Executive and the Judiciary arms of government over the same eight-year period? If she was not mischievous, why would she elect to believe The Economist, rather than the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, RMAFC over the issue of salaries of Nigerian public officials.”
Ogene said the lawmakers therefore “wholeheartedly welcome her request for a public hearing on the stated ideals,” but hastened to add that the former MInister must be ready to comply with some basic ground rules, “so that we may all not be fooled by the guerrilla tactics of someone plagued by an out-of-office syndrome”.
In coming out for the public debate, members of the Lower Chamber said Ezekwesili must come to equity with clean hands, noting that between the 2006 and 2007 federal budgets, she superintended over N422.5 billion as Education Minister.
The statement by Ogene added: “What percentage of the public fund was expended by her as recurrent cost? Indeed, answers to these posers are necessary in the build-up to Mrs Ezekwesili’s anticipated incarnation as an activist, else she would once again embark on spontaneous flight of fancy, whose major destination is mere ruffling of feathers.”
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