Nigeria Senate Says Corruption Allegation 'Spurious'

A spokesman for the Nigerian Senate on Thursday lashed out at corruption charges leveled recently against the legislature by former president Olusegun Obasanjo.



In a statement, spokesman Eyinnaya Abaribe described the charges as "spurious" and "preposterous."



A day earlier, Nigeria's former president Olusegun Obasanjo Obasanjo said at a public event that lawmakers were in the habit of blackmailing the executive into approving 'constituency projects.' which were never executed to swindle public fund.



Abarib described the remarks as "very unfortunate," being made by Obasanjo who "initiated the idea of constituency projects during his reign as president between 1999 and 2007."



"The allegation – as spurious as it was – is very distant from the truth and is nowhere near reality," Abribe said. "The former president would not have tolerated such for the period he was the president of the country," he added.



Abribe pointed out that Obasanjo was the initiator of the constituency project in the year 2000 as a means of ensuring that projects were fairly spread across Nigeria, using senatorial zones as the spring board.   



"To ensure the execution of the projects, president Obasanjo again factored the constituency projects into the annual budgets to be implemented by the executive depending on the availability of funds," Abribe said.



"That is to say that no lawmaker ever comes close to the funds or even determine the contractor for the said projects or when the said contract would be awarded," he added.



He added that it looked both "curious" and "surprising" that the former president would turn around after over ten years of initiating such projects to allege that the National Assembly was performing the function of both the executive and the legislature.



Abribe said it was "preposterous" to claim that lawmakers awarded contracts "to their agents to execute" and expect the presidency under president Obasanjo or any other president to pay for what it is not part of.



The parliament speaker also called Obasanjo's comments "political" and were meant to drag parliament into "public odium" only with the aim of scoring some political points.



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