Senate president, Godswill Akpabio, on Tuesday, March 12, lamented that the integrity of the Senate has been totally damaged following allegation by Senator Abdul Ningi that the 2024 budget was padded.
Akpabio said the upper chamber has been subjected to ridicule as Nigerians continued to bash the parliament.
President of the Senate who spoke during an open session he presided over, faulted Ningi’s earlier interview and for also granting a follow-up interview where he purportedly justified his initial claim of budget padding.
Akpabio recalled that President Tinubu presented a budget proposal of N27.5 trillion to the National Assembly last November.
He also dismissed rumours that the president presented a budget estimate of N25 trillion, a move that has been clarified by the presidency also.
He said: “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 that said ‘this is the highest level of budget padding in Nigeria’s history where the budget passed a budget of N25 trillion but what we collect was N28 trillion.”
