The Senate on Tuesday suspended the chairman of the Northern Senators Forum, Senator Abdul Ningi, for three months over his claims that 2024 budget was padded with N3.7 trillion.
The decision was taken in the plenary presided by Senate President Godswill Akpabio after a heated debate.
Senator Ningi told the BBC Hausa Service that the Northern Senators Forum had discovered that the 2024 budget had an addition of N3 trillion unknown to the senators.
He said the forum would soon confront Mr Akpabio with the findings of experts it had engaged to scrutinize the 2024 budget and would meet President Tinubu over the issues.
He said the budget was lopsided against the North.
Ningi said what he said during his interview was his personal opinion and not that of the Northern Senators Forum.
Mr Akpabio said the integrity of the Senate has been damaged.
He lamented that due to the allegation, the Red Chamber was being ridiculed with Nigerians now bashing the parliament.
He said Ningi’s earlier interview and a follow-up of it where he purportedly justified his initial claim of budget padding was faulty.
Akpabio said President Bola Tinubu submitted a budget proposal of N27.5 trillion to the National Assembly last November and not the N25 trillion alleged, 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 collected was N28 trillion.”
