In this interview with JOHN AMEH, the Chairman, Senate Services in the National Assembly, Senator Sunday Karimi, bares his mind on the undercurrents behind the N3.7 trillion 2024 budget padding controversy that gripped the 10th NASS during the week and what culminated in the suspension of the Chairman, Northern Senators’ Forum, Senator Abdul Ningi, among others.
The Senate on Tuesday suspended one of its senior members, Senator Abdul Ningi, who was the erstwhile Chairman of the Northern Senators’ forum. Take us through the events that led to his suspension.
Let me say that Senator Abdul Ningi is one of the senators we value in the 10th Senate. First, he was in the House of Representatives for sometimes, and he is also a very ranking member of the Senate. Nobody is above mistakes. When you make a mistake, try to own up to it. Don’t forget that I am a member of the Northern Senators’ Forum. It started during the supplementary budget of 2023. There was this rumour all over the place that the Northern part of the country was not treated well in the allocation of resources. A lot of media reports were out there. They held meetings, yet no evidence to justify this claim. So, during the 2024 appropriations, they also came up with the same allegation -that they were going to study whether Northern states were fairly treated.
Before we knew it, they said they engaged consultants to study the 2024 Appropriation Act. The consultants they engaged, we did not know them. They said they engaged consultants for N30 Million. There was a day they came up with a report where about 11 members of the forum were in attendance. I wasn’t there. Out of the total of 109 senators, 58 are from the North, three from each of the 19 Northern states and one from the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). But 11 of the senators from the North attended that meeting. After that meeting, they sent a message to our WhatsApp group that they would be meeting the Senate President. I attended the meeting they held with the Senate President on Thursday, March 7. They came up with a report in an infographic format, showing the distribution of projects. I was so excited when I saw the graphical presentation. But, I thought they were going to show us in that presentation that Northern states were treated badly. What I saw instead was that we were actually treated fairly in the distribution of projects. The zone that I saw with fewer projects was the South-South. But, they came up with the allegation that though we passed a budget of N28.7tn, we were implementing N25tn as the real budget, that while the President (Bola Tinubu) was implementing a budget of N28.7tn, the actual budget passed was N25tn, and there was a difference of N3.7tn that had no location or place to account for it.
When I heard this, I was really alarmed about how this was possible. The Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio, listened to their presentation. The Deputy Senate President, Senator Barau Jibrin, was there. Akpabio asked the Vice-chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, Senator Ali Ndume, and a member of the forum to make a comment on the issue. Ndume said his own views. He also asked the Chairman, Committee on Finance, Senator Sani Musa, for his opinion. He too gave his views. We left that meeting with an agreement that they should produce the report by their consultants, since this was a grievous allegation. Mind you, the House of Representatives and the Budget Office also worked on the budget, not only the Senate. All these parties have to look at your report so that if there is anything wrong, it would be corrected immediately. They promised to come with the report of the findings. This did not happen. The next thing was they posted it on all our platforms, saying that the president was operating two budgets, both the one known to the public and the hidden one, and that N3.7tn could not be located. You could see the level of damage this did to the credibility of this nation.
What you are saying is that the report was neither brought before the NSF nor the leadership of the Senate?
No! It wasn’t brought. We didn’t see any report. It’s only Senator Ningi and Senator Kawu Sumaila, who knew the consultants they engaged and knew the report; nobody else did. At the end of the day, without the report, the Senate President still called a meeting to say, look, this is the accusation by these people. He called the caucus and asked the Chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, Senator Adeola Olamilekan, to explain. The chairman told them that they didn’t know what they were doing, that what they gave to their consultants were just volumes I and II of the Appropriations Act, and that if you gave those volumes to anybody, they would only see N25tn there. However, those government bodies on First Line Charge like INEC, Judiciary, National Assembly, etc that draw their money directly from the federal government’s share of the Federation Account, would not be there. They only bring their summary on the final day of the appropriation; they will be added to get the total budget figure. So, with their level of experience, Ningi and Sumaila gave incomplete documents to consultants to produce that report and they accepted it? Something must be wrong. They scandalised the whole nation. And even when they proved to them that they were wrong, they still went about saying other things that were completely irrelevant to their original complaints.
Would you say there was any agenda, to your understanding of the scenario?
Look, this is all politics; it’s politics. We are all politicians. Some people beyond the Senate are behind this. I want to challenge them; who paid the N30 million? Did they pay that money to the consultants from their pockets? They are just looking for a way to bring this government down. They are digging and looking for scandals. They thought they had gotten something when they said N3.7 trillion was missing or padded in the budget. And they went to the market with it. So, some people are out to look for ways to attack this government and to bring us in the Senate down. I was in the House of Representatives for eight years and in those days they would tell us that members of the House were not as mature as the senators. Then they were calling us ‘House of Commotion.’ But, look at today, we have not heard anything from the House of Representatives; they are more mature than us in the Senate on this budget thing. They know what they are doing and will not be involved in this type of rubbish. Why the Senate? Why are we spreading falsehood everywhere, accusing the Senate, accusing Mr President of wrong doing? The same day you came and claimed that Mr President is trying to shortchange the North; that is not true! And when we asked them to own up and apologise, they did not do that.
Do you think it is necessary to continue to hide the budgets of the so-called statutory bodies from public scrutiny given that many people, including a former ranking senator, Shehu Sani, have faulted this secrecy?
It’s not that they are hidden. The format that is being used for the budget now wasn’t introduced by us in the 10th Senate. That is the format that has been used over the years. Since 1999, the format of the presentation of budgets has been the same. It was not that Senator Adeola Olamilekan just came up with the format, no! That was the same format used in the House of Representatives. What you see in the Volumes I & II of the budget are the details of Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government. The details of the National Assembly, the details of the Judiciary, another arm of government, and the details of other seven bodies on First Line Charge, are not there. They are in a different volume. They come in a summary attached to the budget. So, it’s not something that is happening today. That has been the format.
As experienced legislators, they ought to know better. Why were you in a hurry? When the Senate President said, go and bring the report, let’s see it, if indeed there are errors, then corrections can be made. Rather than doing that, you took the report to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC); you took it everywhere else but the Senate’s leadership. Come on, someone was in a hurry to scandalise somebody.
Senator Ningi stood his ground, he didn’t apologise, even when he had the opening to speak. Rather, he raised more issues. Doesn’t his posture suggest that he is a man who knows what he is saying? Could the Senate have managed the situation better than the suspension?
Senator Ningi is someone I respect a lot. He is a very humble man and we know his pedigree. Left to him, he would have apologised that day. I discussed with some of my colleagues about his case. What they said was that we didn’t give him enough time that day to apologise, that we should have called him again to ask him if he had anything more to say. You know when they asked him to talk the first time, he stood his ground. But a second opportunity should have been given.
Well, it’s not too late and nobody has the monopoly of knowledge. If you make a mistake, own up. I wouldn’t want Senator Ningi to be away for one week. If he comes back today and writes to the Senate President; the Godswill Akpabio, who I know to be a very soft person, will pardon Ningi. As a matter of fact, he called some people that day and told them, look, let’s just ask him to apologise and go home. But some people also insisted that if you would treat this serious matter with levity, then count us out, because these people have spoilt our names. Well, he had to weigh the divergence of opinions in order not to rock the boat. This is an assembly of equals and he happens to be the leader. We are his colleagues. He concluded that those who wanted an action taken about Ningi should also not be offended. But, on his own, he wanted the Senate to just forgive Ningi. We have given him three months. If he comes back tomorrow to apologise, we are going to welcome him back.
Aside from the main allegation of N3.7 trillion, Ningi and a few other senators also made more revelations about huge sums allocated to senators -some N100 billion; N120 billion; N2 billion; 1 billion; others N500 million, etc. They spoke the truth, right?
See, beginning from my days in the House of Representatives, our Zonal Intervention Projects (ZIPs) have been there. They have even improved on it now. Each of the six geopolitical zones has ZIPs of N10 billion for both Senate and House of Representatives members, amounting to N60 billion. Depending on the number in a zone, senators take 40 per cent, members take 60 per cent. In the North-Central for instance, we have 19 senators to divide 40 per cent of N10 billion (N4 billion), not in cash but projects. You submit a list of projects for your senatorial district equivalent to the amount due to you. In my case, I benefitted N200 million, as projects. So, N200 million multiplied by 19, you get N3.8 billion. What they did with the remaining N200 million, I don’t know. Maybe, the senior senators got a little over N200 million, I don’t know. The procedure to access the fund is that you write the Committee on Appropriations and attach the list of agencies to execute the projects. It can be boreholes, transformers, schools, just list them out and submit for them to put the money in the implementing agency. That is different from palliatives. The ZIPs are our own contribution to the infrastructural development of our local communities. Some people got more than N200 million.
You have to understand how a system you belong, works. Everywhere in the world, parliament has ranking. Those in the leadership have some opportunities that they give them more than us. I will not go and put a searchlight and be looking for what they got. That is the practice. Some of these projects they give to the people in the leadership, if you are close to them, they will still share with you! For example, if they give a leader N500 million, he can say Karimi, go and get a project of N50 million, I will fund it. So, if you go round all the principal officers, you may get additional projects from them to add to what you will take to your zone. That is politics.
As a matter of fact, even through our committees, members can get opportunities to add additional projects to their zones, to be executed by the agencies they oversee. Why all this? It’s because we are politicians and we have to take something back to our people. Even if you give a senator the whole N10 billion, it will still not be enough to address all the challenges in a zone. So, we have to lobby and do a lot of calculations to get these projects executed. The Federal road from Kabba to Ilorin in my federal constituency has been awarded since 2014 or thereabout. Today, they will put N200 million, tomorrow, N500 million, some years they will not put anything. Even if you put N200 billion on that road now, it will be insufficient.
The way things work, you have to be very careful so that you don’t destroy the institution. Ningi is both a former House and Senate leader. Is he saying today that he didn’t benefit? Did people nose into what he got or how he got the projects? In any parliament, there is seniority. As chairman, Senate Services, all those in the leadership are my seniors. I go to beg them, I go to the Chairman, Committee on Works, to beg, cajole him just to get something for road repairs and rehabilitation in my constituency.
Are you saying lawmakers are ignorant of this arrangement or understanding if indeed it exists or was it deliberate distortion of information that causes these crises about money now and then?
Look, we should be our brother’s keeper. When this issue started, some of our brothers too were saying, yes, some people got this or that more than us. If you have been in the parliament for long, you have to be patient. This whole drama is painful to me, because it came from the Senate and not the House of Representatives. They seem more mature than us on this issue.
Well, the image of the Senate has been badly bruised in this saga. What is the way to redemption?
You see, the media and Nigerians are happy when they see us this way. And it is the negative side of the story that everyone will project, no matter how much explanations you make. In all of this, some sections of the media still insist that Ningi is correct, despite the explanations given to the whole world. Even Ningi himself, by his own position and what he said, everyone knew that he goofed badly. There was nothing like N3.7tn budget padding or projects missing. That is misinformation. When a big man goofs like that, it’s a shame. So, it’s an error, own up and apologise, instead of us carrying negative information all over the place.
I maintain that it’s an attempt to bring this government down; an attempt to frustrate the administration of President Bola Tinubu, who is doing well and we are with him. We are going to give him all the backing to reform this country. He is not out to steal or defraud any region or zone. He is out to bring development to all nooks and crannies of Nigeria.
With all the pain Nigerians go through now?
Yes, despite the pain. After the pain, there are better days ahead, I can assure you.
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