Movement for Efficient Legislative and Sustainable Democracy in Nigeria (MELSDN) has urged the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) to support Hon. Muktar Aliyu Betara as Speaker of the 10th Assembly, taking advantage of his cross-party support.
On Sunday, the group told legislative reporters in Abuja that the Legislature, a fundamental branch of government in a democracy, needed real institutional memory, guts, and character in its leader. According to countrywide polls, Betara is the only individual who commands such respect, credibility, and widespread acceptance among Members-Elect of various parties.
“The Legislature is the key organ of government in a democracy, be it presidential or parliamentary, and if the incoming 10th National Assembly succeeds, three factors must be brought into consideration and given greater premiums in our leadership recruitment process, particularly as I Competence, integrity, and institutional memory (experience).
“As the election for the 10th House of Representatives Speakership near its critical moments, doubts have continued to flare questioning the appropriateness of individuals who have entered the race. While all those who have expressed interest in the coveted position have legal rights to such claims, one man has continued to stand out in terms of the socioeconomic resilience his current role in the outgoing Assembly has had on Nigeria. Muktar Aliyu Betara is him.
Since 2007, Muktar Aliyu Betara has represented Borno State’s Biu/Bayo/Shani and Kwaya Kusar Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives. “He is the Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations in the 9th Assembly, inaugurated on June 11, 2019, where he has completely proved the aforementioned traits above,” the statement read.
According to Dr. Martins, Appropriation, one of the Legislature’s four cardinal responsibilities, is the heartbeat of any legislative session or term because it determines the relationship between the Legislature and the executive branch.
Since 1999, successive administrations have changed Nigeria’s economic trajectory at will, hurting the economy and citizens due to bad budget planning, legislation, and execution.
“With specific reference to the PDP-led governments and the first part of the APC government until 2019, Nigeria has had a staggered budget cycle fraught with intra and inter-agency and institutional rancour or rivalry that adversely affected the timing of budget presentation, passage, and implementation. Nigeria’s fiscal year began in June of a given year, but the start of the next fiscal year was still being determined.
“But to most avid followers and observers of legislative activities in the last four years, that story changed when the current 9th Assembly, led by the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, and the House of Representatives Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, engineered a paradigm shift from the abnormality of commencing annual budget implementation in any month other than January and ending on December 31 of the same year.
While restoring the country’s budget cycle to its regular January–December course was a top campaign pledge and legislative priority of the Gbajabiamila leadership, that crucial goal could not have been achieved without the Hon. Muktar Aliyu Betara, who assumed the chairmanship of the House Committee on Appropriations, and his legislative prowess, patriotism, courage, and dedication to nation-building.
Hon. Betara promised the House leadership and his colleagues that he would provide a timely, credible, and people-focused yearly appropriation without unneeded conflicts and wrangling between the Legislature and the Executive on his first day as Committee Chairman.
The statement added, “Given the quantum leap achieved by the current administration in budget implementation and performance, discerning minds will agree that the Borno-born lawmaker, Rt Hon. Muktar Aliyu Betara has kept that promise and given the 9th House, the Assembly and of course the Buhari-led APC administration a befitting budgetary legacy to be referenced in times to come.”
The group also drew the party’s attention to the Borno lawmaker’s enormous goodwill among both returning and newly elected House members, noting that such could be what the incoming administration needs to have a friendly legislature using bipartisan consensus to advance government programmes and policies.
“Betara is the guy with the greatest degree of goodwill and loyalty of his colleagues because he responds to their personal and political needs whenever they have issues within the House and at constituency level,” according to Nigerians within and outside the Legislature.
The organisation claimed, “His army of friends across party lines are unequalled in the legislature, and may serve as a veritable instrument in establishing bipartisan consensus, therefore assisting the next government to easily drive its policies and programmes through the legislature.”
