Bukola Saraki, President of the Senate, has challenged the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, to provide proof that the National Assembly had padded the national budget for four years.
Saraki, in a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Yusuph Olaniyonu, said he considers the allegation careless, irresponsible and callous.
Tinubu had on Sunday accused Saraki and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, of allegedly hijacking and padding national budgets for the four years that the party had been in power.
In the statement released by Saraki’s aide, he said; “Yesterday, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu released another of his now well expected quarterly vicious attack on the person of Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki, the President of the Senate.
“In the statement, one could see the master of media spins getting ensnared in his own game as he struggled to extricate himself from the narratives about the contest for leadership positions in the Ninth National Assembly.
“Since we have taken it for granted that Tinubu’s attack on Saraki every three months — quarterly — will come as expected, we would just have ignored his statement but for the fact that it was filled with untruth, fallacies and misrepresentations.
“The statement was another effort to sell a concocted narrative about the Eighth National Assembly and its leadership.
“In all the three budgets already passed by the National Assembly, we challenge Tinubu to make specific reference to where Dr. Saraki and the leadership of the National Assembly ‘sought to pad with pet projects’ as he alleged.
“Tinubu should be graceful enough to substantiate this allegation.
“We consider that allegation careless, irresponsible and callous.
“We therefore demand that he should withdraw it.”
