The Presidency on Sunday accused the President of the Nigerian Senate, Dr. Bukola Saraki of driving the country to the cliff edge by delaying the passage of the 2019 polls budget.

In a statement issued by Garba Shehu, the Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, the Presidency denied the accusation credited to Saraki that the executive was to blame for the delay in approving the supplementary budget for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

“The Senate President should look into the mirror and what he will see is his own face. He is solely to be held responsible for deliberately driving the nation to this cliff edge as far as the preparations for next elections are concerned,” Shehu said.

Shehu argued that the fact that the INEC proposals came after the President had laid the 2018 budget before the National Assembly meant that the electoral body’s proposals would be sent as a supplementary budget.

“A supplementary budget cannot be submitted until the main budget is passed, and so the delay in passing the main budget was the reason for the delay.

“The National Assembly passed the 2018 budget seven months after the document was submitted to the National Assembly by President Buhari. Unless someone has forgotten, the budget was submitted to the National Assembly and it took the Saraki-led National Assembly seven months to release it.

“There is no way President Buhari could have submitted a supplementary budget while the main one was still pending. It is never done. Because Saraki did not return the main budget, we could not have submitted the supplementary one.

“After the long delays, the President was pained to sign the much distorted, butchered and debauched document,” he added.

He further noted that this was the first time in Nigeria’s history that a government would bring together the cost of an election in one budget, with each agency involved invited to defend their portion of the budget before the National Assembly.

While claiming that past administrations approved INEC budgets and funding without breakdowns, Shehu stressed that the reverse was the case under the current government, an act which he said buttresses the transparency and credibility of the Buhari administration.