Don’t pass Tinubu’s proposed 2025 budget, it’s anti-people – PDP to NASS

The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has urged the National Assembly not to pass the proposed 2025 appropriation bill, describing it as anti-people.

The party said that if the proposed budget is implemented as presented it will plunge the nation deeper into the abyss of insecurity, poverty and hopelessness.

Debo Ologunagba, the spokesperson of the PDP, in a statement on Wednesday said the president’s budget address was like “campaign rhetoric laced with unsubstantiated economic statistics”.

CityNews Nigeria reported that President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday presented a national budget of N47.96 trillion for 2025 to the joint session of lawmakers in the National Assembly.

Tinubu said that the budget would trigger the prosperity of Nigerians in 2025 if implemented to the letter, adding that it would restore and consolidate on key policies of the government.

However, Ologunagba said that the budget “made no meaningful provisions” for “real drivers of the national economy”.

“The PDP states that the budget address sounded more like a campaign rhetoric laced with unsubstantiated economic statistics, false promises and conjured performance claims without clear-cut operable steps and mechanisms to address insecurity, resuscitate the economy, revamp ailing industries, shore up food production, increase the value of the Naira, reduce overall cost of living, create jobs for our youths and guarantee better living standard for citizens.

“President Tinubu dashed the hope of millions of suffering Nigerians who expected him to use the 2025 budget to make strategic provisions that will lead to the reduction in the cost of fuel, food items, electricity tariff and other essential goods and services that have direct bearing on the wellbeing of the people

“The PDP therefore calls on the National Assembly not to pass the 2025 budget as presented but activate its legislative powers as guaranteed under Sections 80, 81 and 82 of the 1999 Constitution to rejig the budget and make provisions that are critical and pivotal to the growth of the economy and the welfare of Nigerians,” part of the statement read.