FG plots to arrest lawmakers for booing Buhari, PDP alleges

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has aleged that the Federal Government has directed security agencies to arrest lawmakers who booed President Muhammadu Buhari during last Wednesday’s presentation of his 2019 budget proposal.

Addressing journalists in Abuja yesterday, a spokesman of the PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation, Buba Galadima, disclosed that the President’s men have started compiling names of the lawmakers who would be arrested.

He, however, explained that the National Assembly members have every right to boo the President because 90 per cent of his claims in the budget proposal were false

Galadima said the Presidency would be breaching the rules of democratic engagement if they arrest anyone, noting that globally, parliamentarians had booed and even pelted presidents and prime ministers during such meetings.

He also explained that lawmakers enjoy parliamentary privileges in the country and could not be prosecuted for actions taken on the floor of the National Assembly.

According to Galadima, Buhari’s reliance on false figures and facts in the presentation of the budget proposal has called his integrity to question.

“The lawmakers have every reason to boo the President because what he read as achievements were absolutely trash, falsehood, and misrepresentation of facts. By now, we must have seen that 90 per cent of what he called achievements are not really true.

“It is unfortunate that the President cannot check his facts. He has no way of finding out the truth. Whatever is given to him by his subordinates, he takes hook, line and sinker and rolls out to the public. This calls his integrity to question,” he stated.

On the plot to arrest lawmakers, Galadima said: “We learnt from impeccable sources that some of his close aides are meeting and compiling names of those who supposedly booed the President. I don’t know whether it is to frame them up with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) or ask the police to invite them.”

He restated that the presidency, its agents- EFCC, ICPC, Police and DSS have no authority under the country’s laws to arrest any lawmaker for booing the President during his budget presentation.

Galadima also alleged that the President has breached the Electoral Act by collecting donations from the Nigerian Farmers Association for his campaigns.

He added that the claim that farmers guaranteed Buhari 12 million votes could not be true, as according to him, the number of registered farmers with the association was not up to three million.

“That claim is part of strategies to rig the 2019 presidential election,” Galadima stated.