There’s some trouble brewing in the upper house because some senators are accusing the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, of adding a whopping N4 trillion to the 2024 budget without telling anyone.
A group of 58 senators, mostly from the northern part of the country, met with Akpabio to express their concerns.
They said that Akpabio sneaked in these projects without saying where they would be done.
They also complained that the budget favored some parts of the country over others. The senators claimed that this budget was rushed through without proper scrutiny and that it mainly benefited Akpabio and his friends.
During the meeting, Akpabio reportedly couldn’t explain how these projects got into the budget.
He even suggested that maybe it happened when he was sick and in the hospital. But his deputy, Barau Jibrin, and the Chief Whip, Ali Ndume, said they didn’t know about it either.
Akpabio promised to look into the senators’ complaints and said that auditors had found unauthorized changes in the budget that would hurt the country.
He mentioned that they had found an extra N3 trillion in the budget that no one could account for.
“Because apart from the budget National Assembly passed, some people went behind our back and prepared another budget we are not aware of. There were inclusions we don’t know about, but our experts are still working on it.
“Example, we had a budget of N28 trillion but after our thorough checks we found out that it was a budget of N25 trillion. How and where did we get the additional N3 trillion from, what are we spending it for?
Akpabio said they would meet with the president to discuss these issues and find out who was responsible for the budget mess.
However, Akpabio’s spokesperson wasn’t available for comment when this story was written.
