The leadership of the National Assembly says it will no longer tolerate further rascality from appointees of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Ahmad Lawan, the leader of the legislative arm of government, gave the warning today while briefing State House Correspondents, Abuja.
Mr Lawan, alongside Femi Gbajabiamila, speaker of the House of Representatives, met with the president apparently to register their displeasure over conducts of some government officials.
Their visit might not also be unconnected to the directive by the president that their ordinance pertaining to the recruitment of 774,000 be ignored. The National Assembly had ordered the termination of the process in executing the Special Public Works Programme while calling for a fresh restart.
This is despite apology from the Labour Ministry where the Minister of State, Festus Keyamo, who clashed with members of its committee during a meeting.
On Tuesday, Mr Keyamo announced that he has the approval of the president to continue the process from where it stopped. That announcement did not augur well with the legislature and necessitated the visit.
“If you are an appointee of the President, you are supposed to be reflective of the attitude of the President towards the National Assembly but the National Assembly will take exception to any attitude or disposition that is not in support of the harmony in the relationship between the two arms of government,” Lawan warned.
“I think the relationship between this National Assembly and the Executive arm of government, particularly Mr. President, is beyond one employee of the President.
“Both the Legislature and the Executive must at all times work in the interest of the people of this country, we cannot afford not to do this because essentially, government is for people to have service and the essence of this particular visit is to ensure that the Legislature, the National Assembly and the Executive arm of government, led by Mr. President, continue to work together to ensure that the relationship that we have, which has been working for this administration to deliver services to Nigerians is sustained.
“I believe the outcome of this meeting is going to improve the relationship between the two arms of government. I imagine that at the end of the day the trajectory of ensuring very good and purposeful operational way of doing things between the two arms will continue,” he added.
