Obi to Senate: Channel padded funds in 2024 budget  into critical sectors in economy

 

LAGOS, Nigeria – Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi  has condemned the Nigerian Senate for opting to suspend Senator Abdul Ahmed Ningi following his allegation of padding the 2024 budget to the tune of N3.7 trillion.

Peter Obi who was reacting on X said  the fuss over the alleged N3.7 trillion padded into the 2024 budget raised by Senator Ningi still rages as the Senate’s reaction of suspending the whistle-blower has not addressed vital issues emanating from the allegation.

“And if indeed the report from Budgit is true, that there is about N3.7 trillion without any detailed project allocations, I strongly urge the Senate to do more detailed work of channeling these funds into the critical areas of development – education, health and pulling people out of poverty, which will in turn, minimise the criminality we are facing today. 

“We must, as a matter of urgency, put a stop to all the wastage of our scarce resources, amid the excruciating hardship in the country. Let every penny of our public fund be used for public good. That is the only way to achieve the New Nigeria we are working towards”, he said. 

He pointed out that while the Senator is insisting on his allegation, the Executive agreed that there was  actually a padding but only N1.2 trillion  and not N3 trillion as alleged by the Senator. 

According to him, fresh allegations have also cropped up over indiscriminate and unbalanced allocation of constituency projects by the Senate leadership. 

A civic society group, Budgit, he said through their official, has also added their voice to agree with the Senator. 

“They allege that there was no detailed project allocations for about N3.7trn in the 2024 Appropriation Act”, he noted. 

He said the Senate still owes the Nigerian public a clear clarification over the various claims and counterclaims, including that of the executive arm, to be able to know exactly what is happening, and also disclose to the public, the exact amounts allocated for constituency projects for appropriate monitoring of implementation by the public.

“I had particularly elucidated in my earlier comment on what we can use the N3 trillion to achieve, by showing that it is more than the national budget of the two most critical components of the human development index, health and education, combined”, Peter Obi said. 

He noted that  though the executive arm has accepted that the padded amount is only N1.2 trillion,  the amount in question is still a very significant amount, “when you consider that it is almost 5 times the N251.47 billion proposed for Universal Basic Education, which is the foundation of education, in the Country”. 

He said that the greatest challenge to human resource development in Nigeria today is education, which has been identified as most critical at the basic level.

“Nigeria has about 20 million out-of-school children today because of the poor investment in education. These are resources that would have been utilised to ensure that our children are taken off the streets and returned to schools.

“The N1.2 trillion which the executive branch admitted to have been padded, if channeled into any of the critical areas of development, could have positively impacted the nation and uplifted the people.