Nigeria: Supplementary Budget and Virement - Is There a Difference?

9 December 2016
opinion

Since the request for Virement was passed by both Houses of the National Assembly, it has ignited a lot of debate as to its constitutionality especially in the Senate where the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu objected and raised a point of order during the Senate Leader, Ali Ndume's debate. The Deputy Senate President's objection was indeed thought provoking as he said quite correctly that he had gone through the constitution and found nowhere through the length and breath of the Nigerian constitution where a provision or the mention of virement and therefore because virement was not provided for in the Nigerian Constitution, it was foreign to it and so had no constitutional imprimatur and must fall under the axe of unconstitutionality. The Deputy Senate President argued that the only provision made in the constitution was for Supplementary budget under Section 81. Senator Ndume was obviously caught off guard as would anyone by the DSP's seemingly sound argument and his come back was to point to what he thought was the hypocrisy of the DSP who had been part of several virements during the PDP's reign. Senator Ndume was right but that hardly addresses the legality or otherwise of the process of virement that was under consideration. Unfortunately, the ruling seemed to suggest that the DSP was right but for the sake of national interest the Senators should allow the virement though unconstitutional. Since then many Nigerians have inquired on social media and various editorials whether or not virement was constitutional.

Because budgeting is an annual process and because this is a constitutional question that goes to the very heart of our appropriation process and its fundamentals, which we as a legislative body and as a country seek to streamline and reform, I am compelled to weigh in on this.

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