The Nigerian Senate is currently embroiled in a scandal after a sitting Senator, Abdul Ningi, alleged that the 2024 budget was manipulated to the tune of N3.7 trillion.
Ningi, who made the allegation in an interview with the BBC Hausa Service, also claimed that President Bola Tinubu was running two budgets with the N3.7tn yet to be accounted for, while going with the appropriation act passed by the lawmakers.
The scandal and controversy surrounding the revelations by Ningi saw the Upper Legislative Chamber thrown into confusion and a rowdy session on Tuesday as the lawmakers threw caution to the wind while debating the claims of budget “padding” raised by the Senator.
Though the allegation has been dismissed by the leadership of the Senate as being untrue, suspending the whistle-blowing Senator, the integrity of the 10th Assembly is being questioned by Nigerians.
While addressing his colleagues before his suspension, Ningi said:
“We discovered, some senatorial districts in these documents have up to N120 billion and my senatorial district has just N1.2 billion.
“Mr President, in this budget presented to you, I have facts, constituency by constituency. Some N120 billion, some N50 billion; some N30 billion. Some have less than N1 billion.
“Mr President, I know within budgetary provisions, you made available funds for purchase of cars. Mr President, I don’t know how much you made for your cars and principal officers. I know how much was made for individual senator’s cars.
“As I speak to you, people are calling me names, I didn’t receive a single car.
“All within the budget provisions, Mr President, I have as a matter of fact, five aides just like other senators but I don’t know how many aides you have or how many the Deputy Senate President has.”
As the budget padding controversy raged, another Senator, Jarigbe Jarigbe, representing Cross River North senatorial district in the Chamber, dropped another bombshell when he alleged that “senior Senators” got a whopping N500m each from the 2024 budget while “junior Senators” got N75m.
While contributing to the budget padding debate,
Jarigbe said no Senator has a right to accuse Senator Ningi since there was underhand dealings during the budget presentation.
“We are going back and forth with this issue of the budget and individual issues with what came to our various constituencies. If we want to go into those issues, all of us are culpable,” Sen. Jarigbe said.
“Some Senators here, so-called senior Senators, got N500 million each. I am a ranking Senator and I did not get. Did I go to the press? Most of you got.
“If we want to go into those issues…I think that Senator Ningi….,” Jarigbe tried to argue but the microphone he was holding suddenly went off.