President Bola Tinubu, President of the Senate Godswill Akpabio, Deputy Senate President Barau Jibrin, and other lawmakers are currently meeting at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
The meeting comes shortly after Senator Abdul Ningi of Bauchi Central (PDP) was suspended for accusing the administration of executing a budget that was not approved on January 1, 2024.
Ningi, who chairs the Northern Senators’ Forum and the Senate Committee on Population, claimed in a BBC Hausa Service interview that the Federal Government, led by President Tinubu, was carrying out a budget that was substantially greater than that passed by the NASS.
Ningi, who is the chairman of the Northern Senators Forum, had alleged that the 2024 budget was padded with N3 trillion, adding that he “huge damage” has been done to the north and the entire country in the budget.
According to him N25 trillion budget was debated and passed, not the N28.7 trillion that is currently being implemented.
He had said: “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.”
In a statement issued by Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, the Presidency has described Ningi’s claims as false, insisting that Tinubu never presented a budget of N25 trillion on November 29, 2023 but N27.5 Trillion to the joint session of the National Assembly made up of N9.92 trillion recurrent expenditure, Debt Service N8.25 trillion and Capital Expenditure N8.7 trillion.
He described Ningi’s view as strange view stating that there was no way the Senate could have debated and passed a N25 trillion budget that was not presented to the National Assembly.
He had advised the ranking Senator to pay due attention to details before making wild claims.
On Monday Ningi maintained his position that N3.7 trillion could not be accounted for in the 2024 budget.
