The People’s Democratic Party’s former National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbodiyan, has said that the 2024 budget processing are mainly “audio budgeting and audio implementation”, implying that these processes will not be carried out.
Ologbodiyan made this claim in an interview with ARISE NEWS on Wednesday, where he also asserted that the PDP has been providing alternatives as it should as the opposition but claimed that the All Progressive’s Congress (APC) does not give credence to the suggestions given by the PDP.
Speaking on the issue that the PDP has with the budget that President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope 2024 Budget which was signed on New Years Day, the former publicity secretary said, “Anybody who is going to preside over this country- and I remember that we were very clear about that in the People’s Democratic Party- and is not going to touch the cost of governance is just not ready. Because to be honest, we cannot afford this system of government as a people. Until we agree to that truth, we aren’t going anywhere. So, it’s not enough to say oh, things look different.
“If you go to the issue of budgeting 100 billion for the feeding of students, the question that Nigerians have been asking- where are those students? Where are they doing the feeding? Who are those responsible? Where is it happening? So, most of these budget process, they are audio. That’s just the truth. It’s audio budgeting and audio implementation. So, you cannot be saying that you budget a particular amount for defence, you budget a particular amount for education, but you’ll now go to national assembly in a multiplying order and make a budget. I think we should be honest with ourselves on their budgeting.”
Ologbodiyan then addressed a statement by the former governor of Ogun State, Olusegun Osoba, who said, while in an interview with ARISE NEWS on Tuesday, that the PDP does not provide an alternate voice and is abusive towards the APC.
In response to Osoba’s statement, Ologbodiyan said, “I do not think that all that the PDP does is to just go abusive.”
He went on to say, “The challenge that we have in this country is that once we get into government, we forget the other side, the function of the other side hardly matters any longer, and that is what we need to address. That is the advice that Chief Osoba needs to give to his friend Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, that look, listen to what is being said on the other flank. So, it is not okay to just come and dismiss the opposition as if they are not providing advice.”
The PDP member then said, “If the Asiwaju presidency is serious, it should confront the challenges, that’s what we are saying, that’s what the PDP is saying. So, it is not enough to say that opposition politics, PDP is abusive, PDP is this, PDP is that they are not providing the alternative voice. The alternative voices that they have been providing since 2015 till today, what have the APC governors done about it? Nothing.”
Ozioma Samuel-Ugwuezi
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