I Did Not Bribe Lawmakers With N500 Million For Easy Passage Of 2016 Budget-Niger Governor

The Niger State Governor, Alhaji Abubakar Sani Bello, has denied claims that he bribed the members of the state House of Assembly with N5 million for easy ‎passage of the 2016 appropriation bill, theeagleonline.com.ng is reporting.

However, it was alleged that Governor Bello needed the loan of N500 million to lobby aggrieved legislators before presenting the 2016 appropriation bill.

This is coming barely a few weeks of an alleged impeachment process by the legislators against the Speaker, Hon. Ahmed Marafa, who was accused of being too slow to push for their demands for constituency allowances as well as the Assembly’s pending overhead balances.

The Eagle Online exclusively spoke with the governor over the telephone on Monday where he said such allegation is frivolous.

Accordingly, Abubakar told The Eagle Online: “My government is not known to take all sorts of loan that will lead to any wastage.

“There is nothing like that.”

Governor Bello, who spoke through his Chief Press Secretary, Mallam Jibrin Ndace, said he and members of the House of Assembly are duly elected by the people and are there to do their work.

It was gathered that the loan was allegedly taken from one of the new generation banks in the state and it is not unconnected to preparing the grounds for the governor’s presentation of the 2016 Budget to the state House of Assembly.

The loan will cushion the effect of harsh economic hardship by the members since they assumed office about eight months ago.

Bello condemned the allegation, saying: “Both the executive and the legislative have a very good relationship and the government does not need to bribe anybody to get the budget passed because even the legislators are concerned about their promises to their people.

“There is nothing like that.

“The governor does not and did not take a loan to placate anybody.

“And they don’t need that to pass the budget because the budget is for Niger State.”

Bello added that the budget will be presented as soon as possible in line with the 1999 Constitution.