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In recent times, the process by which the parliament approves budget estimate from the chief executive has being hijacked by self serving elements in the National Assembly at the detriment of the masses. Reports abound on how the Nigerian parliament made themselves the highest paid law makers in the whole world, cases of law makers demanding bribes from the ministries they have oversight function on have been reported severally. This paper attempts to discuss the effects of the prebendalists and the means through which they prebendalize during budget authorization in the Nigerian legislature. The paper identified over bloating of budget, neglect in their oversight functions, delay of budget by anti - government forces in the parliament etc. as the major effects. The paper also revealed that illegal allowances, award/implementation of constituency projects, and padding of budgets through government agencies such as Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), Nigeria Directorate of Employment (NDE), Ogun-Osun River Basin Development Agency (OORBDA), Lower Niger River Basin Development Agency (LNRBDA) and other river basin agencies serve as conduit pipes. Data collection was through secondary sources while content analysis was adopted as a method of analysis. The paper was interrogated using Prebendalism as a framework of analysis. It was recommended that the House of Senate be scrapped and only the House of Representatives retained to save cost. It was also recommended that the Nigerian masses should organize a peaceful protest to the National assembly to demand for an end to self–representation and finally, a convocation of Sovereign National Conference was suggested to enable Nigerians establish an independent guideline for selecting credible people into leadership positions.
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In-Text Citation: (Amaechi, Amadi, & Nnaji, 2018)
To Cite this Article: Amaechi, O. C., Amadi, C. O., & Nnaji, S. E. (2018). Prebendalism And Budget Authorization In The Nigerian Legislature. International Journal Of Academic Research In Business And Social Sciences, 8(7), 58–71.
Copyright: © 2018 The Author(s)
Published by Human Resource Management Academic Research Society (www.hrmars.com)
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