The Senate on Tuesday suspended Senator Abdul Ningi over his allegation of N3trn padding of the 2024 budget.
Ningi alleged that the Presidency had padded the 2024 budget.
“This is true. 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,” he had alleged.
Some Northern Senators had however distanced themselves from Ningi’s allegation.
“We, the undersigned on behalf of the Senators from the 19 Northern States and the FCT, under the aegis of Northern Senators Forum (NSF), hereby state that Senator Ahmed Abdul Ningi of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP, Bauchi Central), who also happens to be the chairman of our forum, was on his own in the claims he made on the BBC Hausa Service on the 2024 budget.
“As such, the view he expressed was his personal opinion, sentiment and unfortunately skewed, incorrect and misleading.
“There was never a time where we held a meeting and mandated Senator Ningi to address the press on the said matter,” they stated.
On Tuesday, the Senate decided on many members’ contributions to the debate where some said Ningi should be suspended while some demanded for mere apology.
After putting the subject to voice vote, it was resolved that Ningi should be suspended for an initial period of three months for his allegations.
Details later…
