By Hon Bamidele Sallam
THE BACKGROUND
- A member of the National Assembly is elected principally to do 3 things: MAKE LAWS, OVERSIGHT THE EXECUTIVE AND FACILITATE PROJECTS TO HIS CONSTITUENCY FOR SOCIOECONOMIC AND INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT. Any member who passes number 1 and 2 but fails in number 3 will most likely be regarded as a monumental failure by those who elected him.
- Facilitating projects to ones constituency is a global best democratic practice. In the United States Congress, members can nominate up to 15 community projects in the USA annual budget under the Pork-Barrel System.
- A budget is a baby of the Parliament. The Parliament makes the budget through a process called Appropriations. The executive is like the father who donates the sperm and his job ends there. The National Assembly is the mother who carries, nurtures and delivers the baby called budget. In fact, in many democracies including the United States, the Parliament can rewrite an entire budget and pass it to the executive for implementation.
- Lawmakers in Nigeria like their counterparts everywhere use the instruments of the annual budget to get Federal funding for projects and programmes that will benefit their people and fulfil promises made during elections campaign.
THE FACTS
- Lawmakers in Nigeria get projects included in the budget through allocation of equal sums in the budget, effective lobbying of heads on Ministries, Departments and Agencies and through special intervention projects approved by the President. The number of projects and amount ( be it 500 million, 1 billion, 3 billion or any amount ) allocated to projects will depend on how well a lawmaker can use these methods and to get projects facilitated.
- A lawmaker is usually given a template at the beginning of every budget process to MENTION THE PROJECTS DESIRED IN HIS CONSTITUENCY, RECOMMEND THE GOVERNMENT AGENCIES TO DOMICILE THE PROJECTS, AND THE AMOUNT REQUIRED FOR THE PROJECTS.
- The budget when passed, becomes the property of the Executive branch of government, which then awards the jobs to contractors after all due process.
- In national budget management, there is absolutely no guarantee that any projects included in the budget by a lawmaker will be implemented fully or even at all by the Executive. In 2025, there is no likelihood that 70% of the budget will be implemented due to current economic realities.
- No member of the House of Representatives or Senate receives any payments as constituency project fund, capital projects funds, or any payments whatsoever for constituency projects. The claim of members “receiving 1 billion to execute constituency projects” is fallacious, mischievous and unreasonable.
EDE FEDERAL CONSTITUENCY IN CONTEXT
By the grace of God, as a lawmaker representating Ede North, Ede South, Egbedore and Ejigbo Federal constituency of Osun State in the National Assembly, I have been able to facilitate programmes and projects worth several billions of Naira between last year and now. In most instances, I do not know or see the contractors handling the jobs.
As we speak, there are over six ongoing high-impact socio-economic and infrastructure development projects worth more than 3 billion Naira being undertaken by some executive agencies of government in various towns of my constituency as part of 2024 budget. These include schools buildings, Electrification projects, roads rehabilitation and so on. Each of the projects have project boards indicating the names of the relevant implementing agencies and the projects scopes. I am proud to be the facilitator of these and many other projects which I constantly report on my Social media platform.
In 2025, I have proposed more classrooms, science laboratories, bursaries, Rural Electrification projects, roads rehabilitation and empowerment programmes for my constituents and they are all specifically mentioned in the Appropriation Act.
WHO SHOULD TAKE THE CREDIT
Of course, the first credit for any project facilitated by a lawmaker should go to him or her because it is a fulfilment of his promise to those who elected him and a fulfilment of his or her job description.
While we acknowledge and thank the President, His Excellency Bola Ahmed Tinubu for aceding to the requests of the National Assembly leadership to enable members facilitate more projects in the Federal budget to address development gaps in rural communities, it is obvious that the President couldn’t have been directly responsible for citing projects in Masifa in Ejigbo, Kuse in Egbedore, Agodo in Ede North or Awere Musa in Ede South Localgovernmentsfor example. He probably even doesn’t know where those communities are ! It remains the statutory and constitutional mandate of the lawmaker to drive constituency services for his people from Federal budget.
FINALLY
Even though the 2025 budget has been passed by the National Assembly, its implementation is just starting as most Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) have just started advertising for contractors to bid for projects included in the budget.
How much of the monies in the budget eventually get released by government to its agencies and contractors will depend on a number of factors including current oil price and Exchange rate of Naira to the dollar, among others. Even the 2024 budget is still far from being fully implemented and this is NOT due to the Executives fault but mostly due to emerging economic realities. If and when te funds are released, it will be to the relevant agency to pay their contractors!
So let no man count his eggs before they are hatched in
