Ali Ndume, Chief Whip of the Senate, says he warned Senator Abdul Ningi of Bauchi Central prior to his claim that the 2024 budget was padded by over N3 trillion, but he never listened.
Recall that Ningi, at the Senate on Tuesday, was suspended for three months over his budget padding allegation.
Speaking on the development in an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Wednesday, Ndume said, “I sat next to the Senate Leader (Opeyemi Bamidele), he was very angry about what Ningi did, but honestly me too. What he (Ningi) did was wrong because I was involved.
“In the first instance, it started when they said capital project was skewed to the South. The total in that budget that was brought before us by the President was not up to N9 trillion, it was N8.9trn and they are talking of skewed capital project to the South and the total adding up to N15 trillion.
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“That N15 trillion is strange, even with the amendment that we made, the capital component of this budget is not up to that.
“I told him he was wrong. I had even warned him when he brought the issue to me. I had told him to get a consultant to analyze the budget. But he refused to listen to me.”
According to Ndume, Ningi was trying to make the 2024 project an ethnic and political issue, which is wrong.
When Ningi first presented the case to him, he told him to provide evidence, which he could not.
He insisted that as a senior member of the Senate, he can attest to the fact that the North was not shortchanged by the South in the budget as claimed by Ningi.
