Legislator Agom Jarigbe of the Cross River North Senatorial District asserts that Senator Abdul Ningi, his colleague, ought to have brought up his claim of budget padding in plenary sessions of the Senate.
Recalls that Ningi, running for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Bauchi Central, had claimed that N3.7 trillion of the budget for 2024 was unrelated to any projects.
However, the accusation resulted in a three-month ban after the Senate discussed the issue in session on Tuesday.
In response, Jarigbe, who discussed the issue on Arise TV on Wednesday, claimed that the contentious N3.7 trillion had since been “captured under the GOEs, judiciary, National Assembly.”
He said that Ningi was wrong to go to the media to publicize the purported budget padding.
He said, “For the nobble Senators that decided to investigate the budget and even got a consultant to look at it, they probably decided to do that before Senator Ningi who is a leader of that Forum took it up.
“I don’t think it was necessary for them to do that and even go to the press, I think it would have been brought to the floor of the Senate to be discussed in our executive section.
“You discover that when the chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriation explained the situation, the N3.7 trillion was discovered to have been captured under the GOEs, judiciary, national assemblies. Those were in the first line charge.
“It was like an optical illusion. N3.7 trillion was a fallacy. If it was brought to the floor of the Senate, the controversy would have been explained”.
