NASS HAS CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO OVERRULE BUHARI – LEO OGOR

The minority leader in the House of Representatives, Leo Ogor, said that the legislators had the constitutional right to veto the decisions of President Muhammadu Buhari and would not concede his powers to the executive.

He said recently in a televised interview, monitored in Lagos, while defending the decision of legislators to insert new projects in the 2017 budget.
He said:  "The constitution gives the legislature some high level of exclusivity. No bill from the executive or anyone is finality; it cannot come to the legislature and you expect that bill to go back the way it came".

"If you look at section 59, subsection 4 of the constitution, it gives the power to the legislature to veto the President if he refuses to sign any bill passed by the National Assembly and it would become the law of the land".

"The constitution gave the executive the right to append their signature to a bill, but if they refuse, National Assembly can veto the President".

"The responsibility of the President is to execute the laws passed by the National Assembly, except they are telling us that the budget is not part of our lawmaking process".

He cautioned the security agency to be mindful on how the security issues is being handled, to avoid major crisis.

"I am very worried because if care is not taken, there would be a major crisis, which we do not pray for and the House has taken two major decisions to that effect".

"I do not envy the acting president because I can only imagine the pressure that he would be facing. He should continue with his approach of reaching out to different groups".

"I also advise the security agencies to be careful about how they handle the situation, because if they do not handle it properly, it might snowball into another major crisis".

The lawmaker further asked the acting president advice the Arewa youths on their quit notice, adding that the unity of the country should be the point to be discussing.

"Osinbajo should tell the Arewa youths to withdraw their statements because the unity of Nigeria is not what we should be discussing".