The leadership of the National Assembly has announced its decision to ensure selected lawmakers join President Muhammadu Buhari at the State House for jumaat service every Friday.
This, according to Senate Leader, Mohammed Ali Ndume is meant to close the seeming gulf between the National Assembly and the Presidency.
Ndume spoke to State House correspondents on Friday shortly after he and five other lawmakers (two Senators and three members of the House) joined Buhari in prayer at the State House mosque.
Senator Kabiru Marafa had also joined the President to observe the Friday afternoon prayer last week.
“We are trying to improve executive and legislature relationship. Part of the ways is for few selected members of the National Assembly to join the President in prayers on Fridays.
“As you can see, there are three members of the House of Representatives and three members of the Senate. You will be seeing more of this in the near future in order to cement our relationship.”
The relationship between President Buhari and the Senate hit an all-time low recently after the Federal Government decided to prosecute Senate President Bukola Saraki and his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu, for alleged forgery of Senate Rules that brought them to office.
Saraki and Buhari engaged each other in a war of words after the former was arraigned, alongside his alleged conspirators.
Saraki accused the President of not being in charge, saying there was another government inside his government.
Saraki is also facing trial at the Code of Conduct Tribunal over allegations of false declaration of assets when he was Kwara state governor.
The Senate President had expressed belief that the executive was merely punishing him over the circumstances surrounding his emergence.
Ndume also spoke on the alleged budget fraud scandal rocking the lower chamber, saying federal lawmakers did not pad the controversial 2016 budget.
He said the crisis in the House of Representatives was a result of the “personal differences” between Speaker Yakubu Dogara and estranged ally, Abdulmumin Jibrin.
Ndume dismissed the budget padding allegations as a creation of the media.
“The issue of budget padding is more of a media hype than reality. We are not doing budget now, we only have appropriation act which is a law and you know the process of implementing a law.
“I do not know where the issue of this budget padding we are talking about is coming from. If we are not to tinker with the budget as submitted by the President, then there would not have been the need to submit it to the National assembly.
“We have the constitutional duty to add, subtract and adjust. That was what was done. This is the first time we did a budget that was collectively produced in the sense that it was done in such a way that the Senate, House of Representatives and the executive played different parts.
“This time, the President took his time to ensure that he did not only sign the budget, but also signed on budget details that he is satisfied with.
“What is happening now is a fallout between individuals, it is more of personal thing between Dogara and Jibrin.
“That is not the way differences should be settled. We have an in-house process that is followed if we have such issues,” he said.
There have in the past one week been accusations and counter accusations of budget fraud between Speaker Yakubu Dogara and former Chairman of the House Committe on Appropriations, Abdulmumuni Jibrin, with a group of lawmakers named “Transparency Group”, and civil society organisations calling on anti-corruption agencies to investigate both lawmakers and others named in the scandal.
