Many Officials Not In Govt For Money, Ready To Serve Free, Says Dogara

A former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, says contrary to popular belief among the members of the public, many politicians in Nigeria are not in government for money.

Dogara, who was a guest on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme on Friday, said many government officials are ready to work for free if people’s expectations on them are lowered to an extent.

“If we can cut the demands on some of these our government officials by 90 per cent I assure you that there are so many people there who are willing to work free of charge,” Dogara said on the programme.

“But the situation is that you cannot put a lot of burden on my head, and you knock on my leg which I am supposed to stand in order to carry the burden.”

On the current hardship and hunger in the country, Dogara said that President Bola Tinubu acknowledged the situation in their discussion during a recent visit of former national assembly leaders to him in Aso Rock.

According to the former Reps Speaker, President Tinubu promised that he is doing something about the hunger and hardship in the country.

‘Tinubu Didn’t remove petrol subsidy’

The President has been blamed by many for the removal of petrol subsidy which contributed to the galloping inflation that has seen prices of commodities skyrocket, but Dogara insisted that Tinubu isn’t to blame as the subsidy was not captured in the budget before his election.

“We must accept whether we like it or not, except we are disingenuous to say that the removal of subsidy itself, whether the president said that subsidy was gone or that he was removing subsidy, we all know that subsidy had been removed before he was elected.

“It wasn’t in the budget, so if there is no provision in the budget, how do you pay? It is illegal for the executive to appropriate money.

“They can only appropriate money in consequence of an express legislative authorisation which is the budget. And in this case, there was no provision in the budget,” he said.

He said the most important thing is that the president has admitted the challenges he is faced with, adding that accepting responsibility for a problem is the beginning of finding a solution for it.