President of the Nigerian Senate, Godswill Akpabio has lamented over the damage done to the image of the Senate by allegations of budget padding that has dominated headlines for the past few days.
This was stated by the Senate Helmsman while addressing his colleagues on Tuesday.
The allegations were raised by Senator Abdul Ningi and it escalated after he granted an interview to BBC Hausa over the weekend disclosing that the National Assembly approved a budget of ₦25 trillion for 2024, as opposed to the ₦28.7 trillion implemented by the Federal Government.
Akpabio berated Ningi for his initial interview and a subsequent one where he tried his all to defend his claim of budget padding.
“Nigerians are bashing the Senate. Many Nigerians will never in future come back to respect this chamber. The integrity of this chamber has been totally damaged and we wanted you to repair it with your speech.
“Instead of that, you said you have more documents to prove what you are saying. This thing is in the public glare. I have not received full details up to this moment. If you had given me full details, I would have been able to know what you know.
“So far, what you know is only known to you, it is not known to any other person. I don’t know how you rushed to the press carrying different versions. The social media is very fast. From Canada, the United States, everywhere, the story was budget padding by the Senate.
“I can quote a section of the Premium Times (a National Daily) that said ‘this is the highest level of budget padding in Nigeria’s history where the budget passed a budget of ₦25 trillion but what we collect was ₦28 trillion,” he said.
Earlier, before the session started, Senator Solomon Olamilekan ‘Yayi’ Adeola had demanded for the house to deal with matters openly rather than having a closed-door session.
One of the results of the open session is the suspension of Senator Abdul Ningi.