N3.7 Trillion Budget Padding: ‘Senator Ningi Stirring A Storm In A Teacup’

The embarrassing allegation of budget padding by the National Assembly is not a new phenomenon, notwithstanding aggrieved senators during the plenary on Tuesday, March 12, literally pounced on the lawmaker representing Bauchi Central, Abdul Ningi, for making a mountain out of a molehill.

Ningi is believed to have ridiculed the National Assembly over his claim that the 2024 budget was padded by N3.7 trillion, increasing from the N25 trillion that was officially passed to N28.7 trillion, which is allegedly being implemented under the leadership of the Senate president, Godswill Akpabio.

However, the allegation of budget padding, for which Ningi has been sanctioned with a three-month suspension, stimulated reactions from concerned Nigerians across the country. They described it as rushed and it looked more at the messenger than his message.

In response to the budget padding allegation, President Bola Tinubu assured the Senate that its integrity remains intact irrespective of Senator Ningi’s claims, stressing that those making allegations of budget padding do not understand the arithmetic of the 2024 budget.

With the controversy surrounding the N3.7 trillion allegedly included in the budget and the defence of the National Assembly, some people assume that Ningi is probably stirring a storm in a teacup, especially as a member of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

In an exclusive interview with Naija News, former Senator representing Kaduna Central at the National Assembly, Shehu Sani, frowned at the suspension of Ningi and the silence of Norther senators.

He said, “As a distinguished senator, if you are raising an allegation of this kind, you should be armed with facts on the ground that will back it up whenever the issue comes up, especially if it is made public. First of all, the senate was supposed to have set up a committee to investigate what Ningi did and to bring him to present himself before the committee and submit evidence, and the committee, after going through that, can now take action on what to do to him. This is the procedure in the senate but now that even the northern senators have refused to come out and support him, so it raises issues about the veracity of his claims. He cannot substantiate what he had said and the senators that suppose to support him have refused to do, so there are issue been questionable about what Ningi has raised.”

In response to the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Sen. Atiku Bagudu, who said NASS didn’t break any law over an increase in the 2024 budget because budget padding has been since 1999, Sani clarified that it is not within the right of National Assembly to inflate the budget.

According to him, “Senators are not allowed to inflate budget costs or include projects that are not within the budget. It is the executive that makes the budget and not the National Assembly. You are the legislature, and it should be made clear. So, as Bagudu said, the National Assembly can go through the budget and scrutinize it, but not to the point of including things that are not inside. That’s the fact about it. It is the job of the senate to start working on the budget and it has been passed and still has been splashed on the process of budget assessment. Now they have save the image of the legislature because people tend to believe what Ningi had said and people see him as a hero for standing up against what they felt was misconduct in the National Assembly, so they have to come clean on the issue of budget padding”

Speaking on why budget padding has become a perennial crisis in different administrations, the former lawmaker said, “Budget padding has become a perennial crisis because constituency project has been added as part of the duties of the lawmakers, that is what all this problem of budget padding had started. Lawmakers are supposed to be making laws and performing oversight functions, but from the very day lawmakers are allowed to perform executive functions like constituency projects, then, you are bound to see all these kinds of fraud taking place. If we are going to have any reform in Nigeria, once you bring an end to constituency project, there would be no more corruption in the National Assembly or padding of budget but the question is who would do that? No president will be armed with the courage to say that he wants to cancel constituency project because of padding, he wants the cooperation of the National Assembly and if he cancels it, they would become hostile to him. There is no agency of government that monitors constituency projects apart from ICPC, and they don’t have the manpower to go to all the nooks and crannies of this country to monitor and supervise constituency projects.”