From  all indications, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua will  not appear before the National Assembly today to present the 2010 budget proposals as earlier announced.Sources in the presidency told newsdiaryonline earlier  that ``President Umaru Yar’Adua will not be coming to the national Assembly today’’.This statement has just been confirmed by Senator Abba Aji a presidential liaison officer.Newsdiaryonline has learnt that several reasons may be responsible for the inability of the president to appear today.

One of the theories in Abuja is that YarAdua’s health is taking its toll on him.Sources said the president is not very well and he may not be able to stand the rigours of hours of budget presentation.It was also learnt that then president may have taken David Mark, the senate president into confidence about his state of health.

The above is suspected to be the reason why the senate may have created a situation which makes it impossible for the president to come to the national assembly.It appears one of the ways of helping the president to stay way is by taking advantage of the disagreement  between the upper and lower chambers.This dispute has deepened in the last few days.

For instance, the senate quite unusually is insisting that the president must come to the senate chambers to present the budget contrary to the tradition  by which budget had been presented at the House of Reps’ chambers.The senate has fewer seats and it cannot accommodate all the members of the national assembly.

This controversy  comes at the time that  there is a long standing supremacy war between the senators and members of the House of Reps.That ego problem has almost stalled the processes leading to the reveiew of the 1999 Constitution.

Sources however said that the rift between the two chambers is equally being fuelled by what is believed  to be cash problems facing the House of Reps with regards to the issue of constitution review.It is believed that the House of Reps may have exhausted its own share of the N500million  given for the constitution review process.Sources however  claim  that the senate has not quite exhausted its owns share of the constitution review funds.It is this ego and financial crises that may be fuelling the disagreement between betwen the two chambers.Sources however say the presidency has merely exploited this rift  as a cover for the president’s inability to stand the rigours of budget presentation today.His illness may be the main hurdle

The official position given this morning by the presidency was that the president has stayed away from the national assembly in line with its policy  of non -interference with the dispute rocking the national assembly.The official also insisted that the president was actually healthy and strong enough to stand the rigours of budget presentation if there had been no dispute between the two chambers of the national assembly..