Posted on: 11:34 Fri, 10 Jun 2016



President Muhammadu Buhari has
demoted Tijani Mohammed
Abdullahi as Director General of
the Budget Office of the Federation.

He will now serve as Special
Adviser to the President on
Planning and will continue to work
with the Minister of Budget and
National Planning.

The Special Adviser on Media and
Publicity, Femi Adesina, in a
statement said the President
replaced him with Ben Akabueze,
who until the announcement was
Special Adviser on Planning.

Both Akabueze and Abdullahi
joined the Ministry of Budget and
National Planning in February, this
year.

Their redeployment is part of an
ongoing exercise aimed at further
repositioning the ministry to
effectively deliver on its core
mandate.

The change, observers said, might
not be unconnected with the
alleged padding that dogged the
2016 budget proposal.

Buhari had on May signed the 2016
budget, bringing an end to the
protracted controversy surrounding
the budget.

The 2016 budget estimates suffered
several delays after claims and
counter claims from both the
legislature and the executive, each
accusing the other of padding the
budget.

The National Assembly in April
transmitted details of the budget to
the President after it passed the bill
on March 23, but the President
refused to sign, citing omission of
certain critical capital projects,
notably the Calabar-Lagos rail line,
by the Senate and House
Committees on Appropriation, led
by Senator Danjuma Goje and
Abdulmumin Jibrin respectively.

The stand-off forced the National
Assembly to withdraw and
incorporate the projects.

There were also meetings with the
leadership of the National Assembly
after which a committee was
formed to look at “grey areas” in
the budget and harmonise them in
time for the President’s assent.