The revelations made on alleged financial misdeeds and misappropriation during the N3.7 trillion padding of the 2024 budget debate, no doubt, may have created more credibility problems for the upper chamber despite suspension of Senator Abdul Ningi.

Specifically, the revelations on multi-billion naira procurement and sharing of Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs), allocation of funds for constituency projects, as well as sharing of palliatives largesse, have practically destroyed reasons for the eventual suspension of Senator Ningi, which, in itself, was done to protect the integrity of the Senate.

Although the allegation has been dismissed as being untrue both by the presidency and the legislative arm of the government, the development has unearthed non transparent and unjustified financial allocations to the National Assembly, thus, further casting doubts over its integrity.

Ningi was the Chairman, Senate Committee on Population, and represents Bauchi Central.

Senator Ningi, on his part, while putting up defence for his allegation on the 2024 budget padding, challenged the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, over his take-home pay, saying it’s not known.

He said: “We discovered, some senatorial districts in these documents have up to N120 billion and my senatorial district has just N1.2 billion.”

Before now, some of the previous controversies in the NASS had also involved brazen allocations of huge funds to itself for undisclosed and trivial reasons to the detriment of the hapless poor citizens.

Last year, the NASS leadership had announced plans to purchase 2023 model Toyota Landcruisers for 109 Senators and 2023 Toyota Prado for 360 members of the House of Representatives.

It was learnt that a unit of the expensive 2023 model of the Toyota Landcruiser and Toyota Prado, which was contracted to be supplied at the cost of N160 million in the third quarter of last year was jerked to N200 million through a contract variation early this year.

Similarly, the specific make for the four presiding officers was also jerked to over N450 million each through the same contract variation process. The reason for the contract variation, as confirmed by a senior management staff of the Senate, is the uncontrollably falling value of the Naira.

The expensive purchase by NASS drew the ire of many Nigerians, who felt it smacked gross insensitivity in a country where the people faced several economic hardships, including an all-time high inflation.

Contract variation is what happens when parties decide to perform part of a contract differently from the way they’d originally agreed in the document.

Varying a contract allows legal and business teams to change certain terms or obligations later down the line, without needing to scrap or redraft the entire contract.

This is amid criticisms of the Assembly for various degrees of misdeeds in the budgeting process as amplified by Ningi, who was unceremoniously suspended on Tuesday.

Long before the contract variation, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) had asked the Federal High Court in Lagos to stop the House of Representatives from procuring and taking delivery of 360 sports utility vehicles (SUVs) worth N57.6bn for its members, pending the hearing and determination of the applications for injunction filed by the organisation.

Ningi had, during his submissions at the debate on his allegations, disclosed that the distribution of the SUVs was full of disparities and discriminations, adding that the number of vehicles being used by the President of the Senate is not known, while other senators like him, were yet to get one.

On the N500 million released to ranking senators as palliative at the expense of others, it was Senator Agom Jarigbe (PDP, Cross River), who revealed during the stormy debate on Ningi’s interview to BBC (Hausa Services), that: “If we want to go into those issues, all of us are culpable. Some senators here—the so-called senior senators—got N500m each. I am a ranking senator, but I didn’t get it. Did I go to the press? Most of you here got it.”

A civil service organisation focused on the Nigerian budget and public data, BudgIT, said it supports suspended Senator Ningi on the N3.7 trillion gap in the 2024 budget presented to the National Assembly.

In its own reaction, to the lawmaker’s suspension, SERAP described Senator Ningi as a whistleblower, as that his suspension is illegal and that the organisation will sue the Senate.

SERAP, in a post on X platform, said, “we’re suing the Senate over the unlawful suspension of whistleblower and Senator Abdul Ningi for three months over his allegation that the Senate inserted projects worth N3 trillion in the 2024 budget, contrary to the Nigerian Constitution and international standards.”

Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State has also declared that the state government is behind Senator Ningi.

Speaking during the state’s cabinet meeting at the Government House in Bauchi, yesterday, Mohammed said, “I was very sad the Senate suspended one of our best from Bauchi for saying the truth, for standing up to be the beacon of the truth.

“Equally, I don’t know what we will do but we will discuss privately to see what we can do to support him because I support whatever he is doing and that is our best position especially if what he is saying is the truth.”

The main opposition party, the PDP, has equally said the suspension of Senator Ningi “is apparently a desperate move to suppress investigation, conceal and sweep the facts under the carpet.”

PDP’s national publicity secretary, Debo Ologunagba, asked:
“Why did the All Progressives Congress (APC) leadership in the Senate not refer the matter to the appropriate Senate Standing Committee for an open investigation in line with the extant Rules of the Senate? What is the APC Senate leadership afraid of and what is it hiding from Nigerians?”

Another issue that worsened image problems for the senate during the debate is the revelation regarding distribution of funds for constituency projects.

Ningi had said that despite the humongous amount of money that got to senators, particularly, principal officers for constituency projects, huge monetary gaps exist between principal officers or senior Senators and non-ranking members.

He equally alleged that large scale cases of duplication exist in the budget that went a long way to cast credibility problems for it and even the National Assembly.

The lawmaker expressed disappointment that some senators got as much as N120 billion for constituency projects while others had N2 billion.

“There were uneven allocations of funds to Senatorial Districts for constituency projects to the extent that while some senatorial districts were given N120 billion, the Bauchi Central Senatorial District I represent, got just N2billion.

“There were humongous anomalies of repetition of funds in the 2024 Budget from which I said N3.7 trillion was still hanging from the N28.7trillion passed,” he stressed.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Sen. Atiku Bagudu, has stated that the National Assembly did not violate any law with the new insertions in the 2024 budget.

During a media briefing in Abuja on Thursday, Bagudu stated that since 1999, it has been customary for the National Assembly to include new line items in the appropriation bill to fund specific projects in their constituencies.

He added that this practice often results in an increase in the approved budget from what was initially presented by the president.

He said, “there has been a long debate, and a former president went up to the Supreme Court to define the appropriation power of the executive and the National Assembly. Later, there was an out-of-court settlement. Until now, this issue has not been resolved.

“So, what is the power of the National Assembly as regards the budget? There is no Supreme Court judgment, and the choice of our democracy is that the National Assembly has the last word. Even when they pass an appropriation, that assent is refused, and after 30 days, it becomes law.

“Do they have the right to increase a budget line? I will say yes.”

He also mentioned that there is a misunderstanding regarding why budgets for agencies classified as statutory transfers do not have their budget line items disclosed.

His words: “These are transfers for agencies that are created by the constitution or legislation. So, they have the right to draw up their own budget. They can be supervised by a committee, but it is not the federal government that appropriates for them; the most popular ones are the NJC, FCT, Tertiary Education Trust Fund, NEDC, NDDC, and others,” he said.

The man in the eyes of the storm, Senator Sunday Karimi, is the chairman of Senate’s committee on Services. The committee is in charge of issues that make lawmakers comfortable in carrying out their responsibilities, including accommodation and transportation.

Defending the purchase of SUVs for lawmakers, Karimi said the leadership of National Assembly made this choice for lawmakers based on considerations of durability and maintenance over a four-year period.

Karimi wondered why ministers, who he said ride about four official vehicles, were not criticised.

He was among the first set of Senators to seek sanctions for Ningi when the latter exposed the misdeeds in the 2024 appropriation.

Leading two other northern senators, he described allegations by Ningi as unfounded, baseless and a figment of his imagination.

He warned against ‘antics of blackmailers’ bent on creating an atmosphere of crisis in the Upper Chamber of the National Assembly.

Karimi, Zam and Sheu, speaking on behalf of the Northern Senators’ Forum, also said no room should be allowed for division and acrimony between senators from the North and South by those who may not want to accord priority to national unity and harmony.