BUHARI'S EMERGENCY ECONOMIC POWERS BILL: ABSURD LIKE OBASANJO'S THIRD TERM BID

I will start this piece by briefly explaining what the proposed emergency economic powers bill means from a layman's point of view. Muhammadu Buhari is asking the legislature to give him the power to disburse and procure outside appropriated funds (outside the budget) in a form of intervention during an emergency like the current economic woes. They believe that, Buhari needs such powers so that he can take some hard decisions that will take us out of recession because the process of getting approval from the legislature is too cumbersome. The question of whether the process of appropriation in the legislature is the reason why our economy is sinking astronomically is a topic for another day.

A dictator with medieval mindset like Buhari cannot be trusted with such power because he will abuse it nepotistically considering his antecedents. In fact, no democratic leader should be given such an undemocratic power no matter how good he is, not even His Holiness Pope Francis because, such power is contrary to the tenets of democracy.

The most worrisome thing about the bill is its ambiguity, it is as ambiguous as gross misconduct in chapter 6 section 143 (11) of the 1999 constitution as amended, and I quote "Gross misconduct means a grave violation or breach of the provisions of this constitution or a misconduct  of such nature as amounts in the opinion of the National Assembly". Legislators, especially at the state level have often capitalized on the ambiguity of the last part of the above quote from the constitution to victimize and harass the Executive, a president or governor can face impeachment because of political rift between him and the lawmakers and they will term it gross misconduct. I raised the issue of gross misconduct because the Buhari that we know will capitalize on this emergency economic powers to situate all major projects that won't be captured in the budget in the North like he has been doing with his unprecedented lopsided appointments, and if you complain, he will tell you that he did not violate the constitution because he acted on the powers given to him with the emergency economic powers act just as his worshippers have been saying that he did not breach the constitution by appointing 88 percent of those working with him from the North because, he is not compelled by the constitution to balance his appointment.

If this bill is passed into law, it would be a very good opportunity for Buhari to establish grazing reserve throughout the country, it won't be captured in the budget to avoid opposition but it will be executed through emergency economic powers.

Another knock for this ludicrous bill is that, it will render any budget debate at the legislature a mere formality, appropriation process will be a waste of time and resources because the president will invoke his emergency economic powers to do whatever he wanted to do that may have been removed by the lawmakers.
The president can no longer be held accountable for misappropriation of funds because he will argue that he acted under the emergency economic powers. We do not need such North Korean bill because supplementary budget window is always there for him to utilize in the case of any emergency.

This alien and undemocratic bill should be thrown out to akara sellers to use it to wrap their hot akara because it is as absurd as Obasanjo's third term bid.