The Senate, on Tuesday, defended the three-month suspension it slammed on the Chairman of the Northern Senators Forum (NSF), Sen. Abdul Ningi, following his claim that the 2024 budget was inflated by over N3.7 trillion.
Ningi, a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lawmaker representing Bauchi-Central Senatorial District, had alleged that while the National Assembly passed N28.7tn as the year’s budget, only N25tn could be verified by a team of consultants he hired to investigate it.
Speaking after the Senate rose on Tuesday, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Sen. Yemi Adaramodu, said Ningi based his allegation on a false premise.
He noted that when the lawmaker was given ample opportunity to provide proof for the allegation, he was unable to substantiate it in the full glare of the Senate.
Adaramodu stated that the N3.7tn Ningi claimed could not be tracked, turned out to be the statutory transfers to government bodies and agencies placed on First Line Charge in the budget.
The allocations to the nine (9) bodies, including the Judiciary, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), pensions, and the National Assembly, totalled N3.7tn, the same amount Ningi alleged could not be traced.
He added, “The Appropriate Act is a public document that everyone can check. It was passed and signed by the public. It was N28.7tn and not N25tn.
“First Line charge or statutory budgets are the ones that amounted to N3.7tn, which he claimed could not be traced. There are about 9 bodies in this line, including Judiciary, INEC, National Assembly.
“Again, if you saw anything you didn’t understand, your own was to raise it on the floor of the Senate and get enlightenment.”
Adaramodu further stated that Ningi was not only a member of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, but also that the committee had the Senate Whip and member of the NSF, Sen. Ali Ndume, as the deputy chairman.
“Today, on the floor of the Senate, the issue of budget padding was put to rest when the protagonists of the allegation were called upon but they didn’t provide any proof.
“Senators of the northern extraction dissociated themselves from the allegation. Ningi initially said he spoke for them, but he later changed mind to say he spoke for himself”, Adaramodu said.
Reacting to another claim by Sen. Jarigbe Agom-Jerigbe (Cross River-North) that some “senior senators” received N500 million each as allocation for their constituency projects in the budget, the Senate spokesman dismissed it as “not true.”
Agom-Jerigbe, while making a contribution on the floor to the debate on Ningi’s allegation, told his colleagues that he too had been informed that senior senators received N500m.
He stated, “If we want to go into this issue, all of us are culpable. Some senators here, so-called senior senators got N500m each.
“I am a ranking senator. I didn’t get. Did I go to the press? We don’t have to go into those issues.”
But, Adaramodu told Senate Correspondents that, like Ningi, who acted on a false premise, Agom-Jerigbe too relied on information passed to him by some persons, not that he had the facts.
“I will recommend to you volumes I & II of the 2024 budget. In the 10th Senate, we are going to do only what is right always. Why is it all about Akpabio, always Akpabio? Is he in the Senate?
“It’s now obvious that there is nothing like budget padding, but an error of arithmetic or opinion by an individual”, the Ekiti-South lawmaker added.
When asked what the Senate would do if Ningi approached the courts to seek to reverse his suspension, Adaramodu replied that no arm of government could stop the other from performing its constitutional duties.
“Ningi was suspended for three months and given a passive parole that after writing a letter of apology, his suspension can be lifted.
“No arm of government can stop another from carrying out its lawful duties. If he writes a letter of apology, he has systematically admitted and atoned for his sins, which means the Senate can look at his case again,” the spokesperson said.
