•As stakeholders weigh in, in Senate
By Fred Itua, Abuja
The 10th Senate, since it’s inauguration in June of 2023, has been enmeshed in one form of crisis or the other. It is a case of one week, one trouble. It’s President, Godswill Akpabio, a former governor, minister and a minority leader of the Senate, has been at the centre of all the controversies in the last nine months.
First, his ascension to the coveted seat of the President of the Senate, sparked a strong resistance from key lawmakers, especially former governors and his colleagues from core northern states. After surviving the scare, Akpabio was again greeted with a series of threats of impeachment over allocation of chairmen of standing committees.
The Akwa Ibom-born politician was yet to recover from the threats, when he incurred the wrath of Nigerians for making statements during plenary that were termed insensitive. Akpabio’s ‘expensive’ jokes during plenary, have also been criticised by lawmakers and other critical stakeholders as unnecessary and demeaning to his office as President of the Senate.
Again, he has also faced sharp criticisms for his perpetual lateness to the chamber, despite repeated complaints by lawmakers, who have refused to accept his many excuses of stating plenary sometimes at noon. The inability of the Senate to pass any signature bill into law in almost one year has also been at the front burner, unlike previous assemblies headed by Bukola Saraki and Ahmad Lawan.
The latest upheaval in the Senate, has again put to test, Akpabio’s ability to manage diversity and accommodate dissenting voices. The suspension of Abdul Ningi from Bauchi State by loyalists of Akpabio, has opened up a new curve that has birthed crises in the months to come.
Many stakeholders, including senators, believe that Ningi’s claims about a padded budget are true. Peter Obi, the Labour Party presidential candidate in the 2023 general elections believe that the Senate still owes the people some explanations as regards the budget padding scandal rocking the Upper Chamber. Obi said the claims and counter-claims over the alleged N3trillion which was padded into the 2024 budget, requires proper explanation as to what Nigerians must need to know regarding management of the nation’s resources.
“The fuss over the alleged N3 trillion padded into the 2024 budget raised by a Senator still rages as the Senate’s reaction of suspending the whistle-blower has not addressed vital issues emanating from the allegation. The Senator is insisting on his allegation and the Executive agreed that there was only N1.2trillion padded and not N3trillion as alleged by the Senator. Fresh allegations have also cropped up over indiscriminate and unbalanced allocation of constituency projects by the Senate leadership,” Obi noted.
Similarly, BudgIT, a civil organisation which simplifies the Nigerian budget, promoting transparency and fostering active citizen engagement, through its co-founder and CEO, Seun Onigbinde, threw its weight behind Ningi’s claims that over ₦3 trillion was allocated in the 2024 budget without details or expenditure items for what of the allocation was provided.
Onigbinde said, “There should be a detailed breakdown of the budget. On that point, Ningi is right. But to say that we are running two parallel budgets, I don’t think that is factual.”While acknowledging the absence of a breakdown for approximately N3.7 trillion in statutory transfers, Onigbinde however said this practice was not uncommon historically.
“If Senator Ningi says there is a N25trn budget, yes, that is the MDA’s budget. It’s different from the government-owned enterprises budget. In the current budget, the National Assembly gave a very broad summary of its allocations but there are no detailed allocations on a granular level that everybody can understand. TETFUND should not just get an allocation.
“What are you spending money on? INEC is collecting a huge chunk of funds but there is no public details about what the funds are used for.
“If you put all these together, that is around N3.5 trillion to N3.7 trillion. So, if Ningi wants to interrogate that there are components of the budget where there are no breakdown, that is very factual.
“To say this, the N3.7 trillion amount somewhere does not have a breakdown; we can’t find that in the budget in our own analysis. I expected him (Ningi) to bring his own breakdown. There are statutory elements in the budgets that do not have breakdown, but that does not seem unusual, it seems like the situation is from the past.”
Emmanuel Onwubiko, the national coordinator, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), said: “No lawmaker can deny the fact that the 2024 budget wasn’t padded.
He said:” So far nobody has denied that about N3.7 trillion is not pinned down to any specific project in the 2024 budget. Nobody can even deny that, because it has been established. Even BudgiT, the Civil Society Organisation (CSO) that specialises in national budget analysis, has even backed the position that the said amount of money isn’t traceable to any project in the budget.
“And it is increasingly becoming clearer that what happened was that the senators allocated the huge sum to themselves. Some of the senators got N200 million; some got N500 million. As we have seen so far, most of the senators have been coming to the media to explain this. So nobody is going to deny anything again. It is now an open secret, but it is just very unfortunate that Nigeria has a senate that is not very transparent and accountable.
“This is because there is no justification whatsoever under the law or any convention for the senators to allocate certain sums of money to themselves in the name of Zonal Intervention. That is flagrant illegality and it must not be condoned. It is not constitutional and purely illegal. To me, it is even a crime against the Nigerian state.
“The senators even shot themselves on the leg by suspending the person who exposed the rot in the senate when they should have handled it better in a way such thing has been handled before. But unfortunately for them, they kicked out the man and the whole thing is now out in the open. I don’t even think anybody can even deny anything now, because everything is right there in public space. Some of the senators said they got over N200 million; some said they even got N100 million.
“In fact, almost all the senators have been coming out with the revelations. And Nigerians were not aware of all these, not until that senator from Bauchi State opened the cankerworm. It is very unfortunate.”
On the floor of the Senate, lawmakers may have got a temporary reprieve. But in the public court, they’re as guilty as Satan himself. With a battered image already and a chamber seen as a den of alleged former governors and ministers, the Senate’s identity crisis is such that may not be cured anytime soon, unfortunately.
Beside the aforementioned, some lawmakers and Nigerians are worried that the multi-billion naira ongoing constitution review exercise, may suffer a huge blow when aggrieved senators take their pound of flesh in the coming months. With very contentious amendment bills already proposed, the possibility of having them passed by a divided Senate is a tall order.
The new constitution review exercise, Daily Sun has gathered, will address issues such as independent candidacy to contest for an elective office; creation of state police; federal structure and power devolution; fiscal federalism and revenue allocation; judicial and electoral reforms; immunity for presiding officers of the National and State Assemblies; full local government fiscal autonomy; state creation agitations; among others.
Members of the committees may also face the challenge of revisiting the age-long quests to separate the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation/state from the office of Minister/Commissioner for Justice; change in procedure for the enactment of an entirely new constitution, which includes a referendum; inclusion of basic education and primary healthcare in fundamental and justiceable human rights.
Other issues are inclusion of electoral offences as a ground to disqualify candidates from future elections; mandatory presentation of the yearly state of the nation address to a joint session of the National Assembly by the President; and removal of presidential assent to constitution amendment bills.
Chief Whip of the Senate, Mohammed Ali Ndume from Borno State, has already kicked off the offensive against certain components of the proposed amendments. Some stakeholders have noted that this is pointer to what is to come in the coming weeks.
Ndume said the Nigeria Police at present should be strengthened to bring about enhanced and effective policing of the country. Ndume in an interview after the episode that happened on the floor of the Senate, said his opposition to the establishment of state Police was a personal opinion, stating that if put on the floor of the Senate, he will vote against it.
The senator appealed to the Federal Government to recruit more into the Nigeria Police, maintaining that the ratio of police personnel to the populace according to international required standard was grossly inadequate at the moment in the country.
“I won’t vote for state police if it comes up in the constitution amendment process because it would be abused by governors. I support that they should take away all their police (officer). One Senator will be going around with 10 policemen, seven, members of House of Reps, everybody. That is for those who are mobile. Some even give security to their wives, others give security to their children. I am against that,” he said.
Ironically, creation of State Police is one of the core reforms President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is pushing for as part of the ongoing constitution review exercise. With Ndume’s position and those of other lawmakers who are maintaining a loud silence, it may kiss the dust when it is formally presented.
The outburst by the Leader of the Senate, Opeyemi Bamidele, which has been described as demeaning for his exalted position, has further widened the curve. With the victors and the vanquished emergence, Bamidele’s outburst will continue to be a reference point.
“We must never accept any apology from Senator Ningi. It is ridiculous to do so. He lied deliberately. Mr Senate President, you’re occupying that seat 40 years after a South South person occupied it.
“The last time a Southerner was there was during Obasanjo and they were being changed every time. It was only stable when it returned to the North. David Mark spent 8 years, Saraki completed his 4 years, Lawan spent his four years.
“Don’t be deceived, the losers of June 2023 Senate President election are still angry. Some have accepted but a few haven’t. They have plotted to remove you before June 2024. That is why you must not allow this deliberate mischief by Ningi to go away. He did it on purpose. He knew he was lying, he set the public against you, he will do it again. We must apply our sanction,” an angry Bamidele had noted.
The above outburst by Bamidele, Leader of the Senate, who by convention, is supposed to calm angry lawmakers, is still reverberating in the polity. How the damage control will be handled in the coming days will foretell how far the division in the Senate will last.