Another budget was passed underground - Senator blows the whistle

A senator representing the Bauchi central senatorial district, Abdul Ningi, has revealed that the Senate passed another budget different from what was agreed to by lawmakers on the floor of the National Assembly.

The senator alleged that some insertions have been noticed in the budget, which has caused it to overshoot what was passed by ₦3 trillion.

Ningi made the disclosure while speaking during an interview with BBC on Saturday, March 9, 2024.

He also stated that the Northern elites are displeased with President Bola Tinubu's government, claiming the North has been shortchanged.

Regarding the questionable budget, the lawmaker said some experts have been engaged to conduct a review, and a report will be presented to the President to ascertain if he was in the know.

“This is true (about the review of the government) 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. 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,” he said.

Speaking further, Ningi decried the neglect of some monumental projects in the North.

“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.

“This is what we intended to do. We are to meet the president. We will talk to him about the Mambilla 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,” the senator added.