There are strong indications of another crisis at the upper legislative chamber following a N4 trillion budget padding allegation against Senate President Godswill Akpabio.
Some lawmakers on the platform of Northern Senators Forum (NSF) have confronted Akpabio over alleged padding of the 2024 budget with about N4 trillion worth of projects.
The group, made up of 58 lawmakers and led by its chairman, Abdul Ningi (PDP, Bauchi), had confronted Akpabio at a meeting on Thursday in the Senate President’s Guest House in Maitama.
Members of the Senate leadership present at the tension-soaked meeting, apart from Akpabio, were his deputy, Barau Jibrin (APC, Kano), and Chief Whip, Ali Ndume (APC, Borno).
According to Premium Times, the northern senators accused the senate president of “inserting” projects worth N4 trillion in the 2024 budget.
They alleged the projects, which had no locations, were discreetly inserted into the budget.
They also claimed that the budget was lopsided against the northern part of the country and some parts of the south.
The northern senators also accused Akpabio of railroading the senators to hurriedly pass “the most fraudulent budget in the history of Nigeria”.
They claimed at the meeting that after clinically scrutinising the budget, they came to the conclusion that it was “self-serving in favour of Akpabio and his cronies”.
“He [Akpabio] couldn’t defend the allegation. Instead, he said he didn’t know how it happened. He said it may have happened when he was hospitalised,” a senator said.
It was also learnt that the senate president, who feigned ignorance of the insertions, asked Ndume if he knew how it happened but the latter said he was not aware.
Before the meeting ended, Akpabio assured the senators that he would look into their grievances.
“For the last three months, we have employed private financial auditors to extensively examine the 2024 budget. We have uncovered significant unauthorized changes and additions in the budget that would have a widespread negative impact on the nation as a whole,” he said.
“We are supposed to meet with the senate president and show him the irregularities we saw in the budget and let him know our concerns. we will not agree and support spending money on what we are not aware of.
“Because apart from the budget National Assembly passed, some people went behind our back and prepared another budget we are not aware of. There were inclusions we don’t know about, but our experts are still working on it.
“Example, we had a budget of N28 trillion but after our thorough checks we found out that it was a budget of N25 trillion. How and where did we get the additional N3 trillion from, what are we spending it for?
“And there are many other issues we have discovered. We are going to meet with the president and show him, we will ask him if he is aware of all these things that are happening. We will show him and ask him if he is aware of it, and what he intends to do to those who partake in the whole manipulations and inclusions.”
Akpabio’s spokesperson, Eseme Eiyboh, was not available for comments as at the time of writing this story.
