N3TRN BUDGET PADDING: Nigerians describe suspension of Ningi over allegations as postponing evil day, as Obi wants budget review

By KEMI KASUMU

“One is surprised that instead for the Senate to embark on transparent investigations with necessary stakeholders involved, the lawmakers did the most unthinkable by merely throwing the message away along with the messenger. That was what they did with the suspension of Abdul Ningi…”

Candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 presidential election, Mr. Peter Obi, has demanded a review of the Nigeria’s N25 trillion 2024 budget.

His demand was coming on the heels of allegation by a member of the Senate from Bauchi State, Senator Abdul Ningi, which revealed that the national budget was padded to the tune of N3 trillion.

Senator Ningi, in a recent interview with BBC Hausa, had claimed that the National Assembly passed a budget of N25 trillion for the 2024 fiscal appropriation year.

According to the lawmaker, the passed budget is in contrast with the N28.7 trillion being implemented by the Federal Government.

Senator Ningi’s claims generated controversy in the Senate and Nigerians have criticised the lawmakers under the leadership of the Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio.

The Senate has since suspended Senator Ningi for three months over the allegations of budget padding, despite calls by members of the public on whose votes the lawmakers rode to their legislative positions.

Sources privy to the development are, however, saying that the Senate’s inability to clear itself of the serious allegations by Ningi, a Peoples Democratic Party Senator, is only a postponement of an evil day for the system.

“One is surprised that instead for the Senate to embark on transparent investigations with necessary stakeholders involved, the lawmakers did the most unthinkable by merely throwing the message away along with the messenger.

“That was what they did with the suspension of Abdul Ningi but they should be worried because the people cannot be patient for any longer time than necessary. They have only postponed an evil day by leaving this N3 trillion padding allegation unresolved. No Nigerian believes them especially when they try to silence opposition by the kind of treatment metted to Ningi,” one of them said.

Reacting to the development on Monday, Peter Obi demanded the immediate review of the 2024 budget by executive and legislative arms of the government.

He said that Nigerian resources should be adequately appropriated for critical areas like security, fighting poverty and solving the challenges of hunger and food insecurity, power supply, especially considering the difficult times its citizens are in.

In a series of posts on his X handle, the former Governor of Anambra State said, “Having followed the controversies trailing the 2024 budget, and having read some of the budgetary provisions and allocations of resources, I wish to respectfully appeal for a total review of the entire budget.

“The Executive and Legislative arms should initiate an immediate review of the budget as it is still in early days of implementation in order to enable them do urgent virement of resources to critical areas.

“The nation’s resources should adequately be appropriated to critical areas like security, fighting poverty and solving the challenges of hunger and food insecurity, power supply, especially considering the difficult times that we are in.”

Obi noted that “in the past 1 year, about 7000 Nigerians have been kidnapped, with about 700 kidnapped in the last 3 weeks, notwithstanding the violent crimes and killings that occur in every part of the nation, which must have included us in one of the world’s riskiest countries to live in”.

He continued, “A report by the globally respected publication, Financial Times, on March 12, 2024, described Nigeria’s kidnapping racket as a sign of a failed state. With all of these happening in our nation, how then can we attract foreign investors, & retain the confidence of local investors?

“We have become one of the hungriest nations in the world and one of the most difficult nations in the world to live in, with food prices constantly going out of the reach of most Nigerians.

“Power supply is abysmally poor and Nigerians are now mostly in total darkness, as over 60% are without power supply. Even those in perceived privileged areas now go for days without power supply.”

He said, “A 2022 Energy Progress Report designated Nigeria as the country with the largest number of people lacking access to electricity with 92 million of its over 200 million population living without electricity.

“About 80 percent of our primary healthcare centres are not functional. The cost of medical treatments and medicines has gone beyond the reach of most Nigerians.”

He lamented that Nigeria now has the ‘highest number of out-of-school children, with about 20 million out-of-school children”.

“We need to take our children off the streets and give them access to basic education.

“I, therefore, urge our executive and legislative arms to consider the many challenges facing our nation and re-allocate resources to these very critical areas. This is the time for complete sacrifice. A New Nigeria is still very possible,” he said.