Budget Padding: ‘We Have Been Stripped Naked In The Marketplace’ – Oshiomhole

Edo North Senator, Adams Oshiomhole, criticized the budget padding allegations within the Senate on Tuesday.

During the Senate session, Senator Oshiomhole shared his views on the N3.7 trillion budget allegation Bauchi Central Senator, Abdul Ningi, raised. Oshiomhole lamented that the Senate had been stripped naked in the marketplace.

Naija News reports that Ningi, the Chairman of the Northern Senators Forum, had been suspended by the Senate for three months from all legislative duties.

Recall that Senator Ningi, in an interview with the BBC Hausa Service on Saturday, alleged that the National Assembly padded the 2024 budget with N3.7 trillion.

Oshiomhole said: “We have been stripped naked in the marketplace, so we can’t now wrap it up like it’s nothing.

“He has made credible contributions in this Senate, so I think he can still remedy it, having agreed that something went wrong.

“What was the figure in the Appropriation Bill that was approved? Somebody answered N28 billion; therefore, any suggestion that it was N25 billion is simply a lie.

“The problem of trying to defend a lie is that you have to stick to more lies to defend lies.

“Ningi has a duty to his children that he will not be the man reported in the media as saying what is not true.”