Northern Senators vow to meet Tinubu over alleged N3 trillion padding in 2024 budget, accuse Senate President Godswill Akpabio of malfeasance
By Emma Ogbuehi
The Northern Senators Forum has vowed to meet President Bola Tinubu over alleged N3 trillion padding discovered in the 2024 budget.
The Chairman of the Forum, Senator Abdul Ningi, disclosed this during an interview with the BBC, Hausa Service on Saturday.
Ningi said the Forum has commissioned consultants to thoroughly scrutinise the 2024 budget to reveal how N3 trillion was surreptitiously added to the amount passed by lawmakers.
He also said the Forum would soon confront Senate President Godswill Akpabio with its findings concerning the N3 trillion alleged padding.
Sources told TheNiche on Saturday that the campaign may be targeted at Akpabio, who some northern Senators seem not to be happy with.
Even without waiting to meet with Tinubu, some of the federal lawmakers have started the campaign against Akpabio on social media.
A badly written text message, full of grammatical errors, which was forwarded to TheNiche on Saturday by a Senator from the South read:
“Breaking: For the first time in Nigerian history, today we are operating two different budgets. One budget approved by National Assembly signed by President Bola Tinubu and the one implemented by presidency.
“The one approved by us is ₦25 trillion while the one operating by Federal Government is ₦28 trillion. Apparently we discovered ₦3 trillion was inserted into the budgets without locations. This is the highest budget padding happened in Nigerian history under Sen Akpabio watch.
“We resolved as people Repsentative to see President Tinubu on this issue, with facts and figures, to ask him if he is aware with this embarrassment or not, then from there we will take action. Let Nigerians be patience with us. This is national issue, it effects all Nigerians in respect of party, tribe or religion.
“Senator Abdul Ningi, Chairman Northern Senators Forum, BBCHAUSA, Saturday, 9 March, 2024.”
But in the BBC interview, Ningi speaking on the plans by the Forum to review the 2024 budget, said: “This is true, for the past three months, we have engaged consultants to review the budget for us. We have some experts that are working on it line by line.
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“We have seen the huge damage that was done not only to the north but the entire country in that budget. We are supposed to sit with the Senate President to inform him about what we have observed.
“We want to show him what we have seen in the budget that is not acceptable, we will not accept them and we don’t want the country to continue spending money on those things.
“Apart from what the National Assembly did on the floor, there was another budget that was done underground which we didn’t know.
“The new things we have discovered in the budget were not known to us. We haven’t seen them in the budget that was debated and considered on the floor of the National Assembly.”
On alleged discovery of N3 trillion padding in the budget, Ningi added: “For example, it was said that there was a budget of N28 trillion but what was passed was N25 trillion.
“So there is N3 trillion on top. Where are they, where is it going? So, we need to know this. There are a lot of things.
“We are coming up with a report and we will show the president himself and ask him if he is aware or not.”
Responding to questions during the BBC interview, Ningi said the present administration has in his opinion, not performed to expectation.
He said: “First of all, I want you to know that I am a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and a representative of the people. Based on my opinion, the government hasn’t performed to our expectations.
“Things are getting worse compared to when President Bola Ahmed Tinubu took the leadership of the country. People are going through a lot of difficulties. We live in villages.
“We are going there to interact with them and they are lamenting seriously. They have nowhere to go, so they have no one to express their grievances to than us.
“I think Bola Ahmed Tinubu didn’t even understand this country and he didn’t understand the difficulties of ruling a country like Nigeria.
“Probably, he has his thinking of what governance is, but I don’t blame him so much because when he was campaigning for the seat, there was no agreement or promise between him and the people.
“People were just blinded and voted for him because he supported former president Muhammadu Buhari when he was contesting.
“Some even voted for him because he is a Muslim, as such he needed their vote on whether he can or cannot do the right thing for the country.
“But the most painful thing is that Northerners stood for him and did all they could to bring him to power, but unfortunately, there was no agreement between them and the president on what should be done to the North and the Northerners.
“Especially taking into consideration the importance and significant projects that the North has been yearning and aspiring to get for a long time. For example, the Ajaokuta project, the Mambila power project, the dredging of river Niger and other notable projects.
“What mostly disturbs my sleep is that we had a budget in 2013 and 2014 in which we earmarked billions of Naira but it was neglected by President Goodluck Jonathan, when President Buhari came, we thought it was one of the projects he would pay attention to, but unfortunately, it wasn’t possible for over eight years.
“Even road construction like Kano-Abuja is not yet completed, as if it was cursed by someone, despite the road being the soul of our travelers in the North.
“Indeed, we don’t attack the government as the opposition is supposed to do. But this is a result of the situation and the government we have.
“These so-called leaders they forced on us, were not voted by us. They brought religious issues, and ethnic and tribal issues into the process, they used propaganda saying that no Hausa/Fulani would be trusted to lead the opposition because there would be no peace.
“If you look at it from this scenario, the majority of those in opposition are from the Northeast and the Northwest, but we were not allowed to be the leaders of the opposition in the Senate.
“This is one of the reasons why we said we would go back and look at what is happening under the umbrella of the Northern Senators Forum which is under my leadership. But you can’t do everything here, because it involves members of the ruling and opposition parties. It is very difficult to challenge the ruling party under that umbrella once you want the unity of the North.”
On transferring of some departments of federal agencies to Lagos, he said: “I will speak not as a member of opposition, but as a northerner. As a northerner, I know that this is going to happen.
“We heard about it and we saw several examples in the past that tell us that all this is possible. But as I speak, our people, especially the leaders are yet to take any action to find the solution. That is why I am not even surprised.
“These things that are happening are of two categories. Some affect the North only, and some affect the entire country. What we are doing now as leaders of the Forum of Northerners, we are trying to address the problem or reduce its strength without allowing politics to come in.”
“This is what we intended to do. We are to meet the president. We will talk to him about the Mambila power project, Ajaokuta and the River Niger dredging. We will talk to him about the Niger Republic. Recently, they said they will construct a dam, this is not good for us,” he said.
He claimed that the action taken by ECOWAS has affected the relationship between Nigeria and Niger Republic.
He added: “There was an agreement that they would not construct a dam so that the Kainji Dam would be intact and we will give them electricity in return.
“Over one billion US dollars was spent on Mambila, BBC has reported. Where is that money? Who collected the money? We need to know and see what can be done.
“This Mambila is like the future of the North. Every part of the country has its holds as a symbol that will save them in the future.
“One of our weaknesses in the north is that we don’t love ourselves and our region so much that we don’t care about the future. We are just living anyhow.
“We just love the region in our mouths not at heart and I am seriously worried about that.”
On security challenges in the North, he said: “These security challenges are happening in the North. There is nowhere in the South where someone will be abducted and spend seven days in custody of the abductors.
“Look at Katsina, Zamfara, and Benue. I am even afraid that one day we will wake up and see that states like Zamfara are been taken away from the country. It is possible going by what is happening.”
