By Sunday Ani
Senator Titus Zam is the member representing Benue North-West Senatorial District. In this interview monitored on Arise Television, he speaks on allegation of budget padding against the Senate by Senator Abdul Ningi and the position of the Northern Senators’ Forum, among other issues
What do you make of the allegation by Senator Abdul Ningi that N3.7 trillion was not captured in the 2024 budget?
Let me say that my dear brother and colleague in the Senate, Senator Abdul Ningi has reorganised his thinking processes and he has decided to beat a fast retreat because he has discovered suddenly that the route he was taking will lead him to nowhere. I want to begin by saying I’m a proud member of the Northern Senators Forum and I was at the meeting, where Senator Ningi Led us to meet with the Senate President over this allegation of budget padding.
It is surprising that he decided to run away from the route he took of speaking for the northern senators. If he has chosen to beat a retreat, he should also be honourable enough to accept that what he said or what he has set out to do is not achievable. We met at the plenary on Thursday, March 7, after which Senator Ningi told us, the northern senators, that we are going to meet with the Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio, over certain infractions that he allegedly discovered in the budget.
We were up to 27 senators and we came to the Senate President and Ningi presented a document purporting to be a report from a consultant, who was hired to study the budget and report back to us.
When we were all there, he presented this document but said the document was only an interim report and that a full report would be presented to the Senate President, where it would be established that some fractions occurred in the 2024 budget. The Senate President did not present himself as somebody who was troubled by the alleged budget padding; he was very calm and collected.
When Ningi finished his presentation, Senator Akpabio said, ‘you said this is only an interim report and that more findings are being done after which you will present a comprehensive report. So, when you present your comprehensive report, I will also undertake a similar process on your report to establish the veracity or otherwise of your allegations.’ We agreed at the meeting with the Senate President that since this document is not yet authenticated, nobody should go to the press over it because the findings may go one way or the other.
We were all taken aback, when many online platforms were inundated by reports of alleged N3 trillion budget padding by Senator Akpabio purported to have been discovered by Senator Ningi. I told you earlier that he presented the report as the chairman of the Northern Senators Forum, which I belong to and I listened to him. If today, following the backlash from many of our northern people, who distanced themselves from those allegations, he decided to say he will bear his cross, I wish him good luck.
But I think it is proper to conceptualise the person of Senator Ningi as someone who speaks from two sides of his mouth. Having said that, it is not true that there is anything like budget padding, the President of this country through his spokesperson has already established that he presented the N27 trillion budget. Nobody has disputed that and that it is the National Assembly that added N1 trillion to the figures earlier presented.
At the end of the day, the nation was presented with a N28 trillion budget and that is the official document we have. I want to put it to Ningi to tell us where he got the so-called N25 trillion budget because the budget process begins with the executive arm of government. It is the executive arm of government that prepares the document and presents it to the National Assembly for scrutiny.
And if the owners of the budget are saying they presented N27 trillion and the National Assembly added N1 trillion to it totalling N28 trillion, how come Abdul Ningi is talking about the N25 trillion budget? He is insisting that some figures are not attached to locations; he does not even know that certain statutory transfers don’t have locations in the budget. Money allocated to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), judiciary and so on, you will not find it in any of the states or zones.
Some of these things require some level of accounting knowledge and budgeting process. Ningi himself is a member of the Appropriation Committee, I am also a member, and we sat jointly with the House of Representatives to scrutinize the document brought to us by the executive branch of government. Why is he setting out Senator Akpabio for vilification? This document was not presented by Senator Akpabio; It was presented to us and we had a joint session with members of the House of Representatives.
I want to say on good authority as a member of the Appropriation Committee that there is nothing like budget padding, so I want to discountenance this issue and I want to tell the whole world that Ningi is not telling the truth. He is out on the worst form of partisanship and political mischief.
Was there at any time in the process of looking through the budget that Senator Ningi raised concerns about these allocations without locations?
He never did that and that is why I put to him because he is a member of the Appropriation Committee and a member of the Northern Senators Forum. When he began this politics of allegations of budget padding, he brought it to us in the meeting and we said this is fantastic if we have proof. He told us that the consultant had not finished the work. He brought the allegation at the forum’s meeting on March 5, not during the budgeting process.
Ningi also alleged that the budget is anti-north with allocations. Is there any merit to such a claim and is it the feelings of the Northern Senators Forum?
I don’t think that is true because the budget of Nigeria is not done according to regions. There are sectoral allocations; this contraption of the North not being favoured by the budget is also a figment of imagination because Nigeria is not run on a regional basis. We have a federal system of government that consists of local governments, states and the centre. So, I don’t know how he has come up with that contraption of the North not being favoured. That was why some of us who are members of the Northern Senators Forum had to quickly distance ourselves from the kind of politics Ningi set out to play.
If you look at the transcribed version of the BBC Hausa Service interview, he made a lot of uncomplimentary statements against the ruling party. He began by saying that he is a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and that the Northern Senators Forum that he chairs consists of members of the ruling party, so it would be difficult for him to use that platform to play opposition politics.
But he ended up saying that is the only available medium for him to do what he has set out to do. So, I want to say here that the man set out to play PDP politics against the ruling party and he has done it in the most incoherent and disorganized manner.
As a member of the Appropriation Committee, did you see any imbalance in the budget when you checked all the line items and did the figures balance with the N28.7 trillion passed by the National Assembly?
Yes, it does and it balances till the end. The executive branch of government brought N27 trillion budget and the National Assembly also added N1 trillion, making it a total of N28.7 trillion. And item by item, it tallies. The N25 trillion is a figment of his imagination.
Senator Ningi said he has some people looking into the budget, does the Senate also have forensic experts looking into it to be able to see where the N3 trillion he is talking about went to?
Yes, he is correct in drawing attention for the North to be developed like any other part of the country but that has to be done with the ambit of decency. What my dear friend and colleague, Ningi has set out to do is to create crisis in the Senate. Whatever purpose he wants to achieve, it is now clear that he is out for some mischief. You can see that there is even an ethnic card he tried to play by going to BBC Hausa Service.
I believe he speaks good English; there are other television stations that he can grant interviews but he went to BBC Hausa Service, what he wants to achieve by going to a platform that is ethnic to present his case. It means he is out to divide the Senate and even divide the country by extension, which is most unfortunate and very unbecoming of someone that swore an oath to serve the country and different it in its totality.