senator abdul ningi is not the first lawmaker to be suspended, the budgetary process over the years had billions of naira illegally padded through inflating the budget to trillions of naira.
The concept of budget padding was new in 2016 dictionary of Nigeria politics, when the Chairman House Committee on Appropriations, Abdulmumin Jibrin was sacked for one year.
In the allegations by abdulmumin, which he presented to the department of state services, DSS, asked Nigerians to ask Dogara the then speaker of the house of representatives, why he was taking N25 million every month from the accounts of the national assembly, with a plea on the agency to probe the embattled speaker.
It was a damning revelations against Dogara, who he said had undermined the then President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption war by padding his first ever budget to the tune of N281 billion, taking over N9 billion to his Bauchi State constituency alone.
during defence of the 2016 budget proposal, some projects worth about N480 billion were inserted. The then Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole, while disowning the health budget details before the parliament, stated, “This was not what we submitted. We’ll submit another one. We don’t want anything foreign to creep into that budget. What we submitted is not there.” Similarly, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, repudiated the ministry’s budget, saying, “No, that is not possible. That was definitely not what was proposed, this cannot be!” Despite this public exposure of fraud, no one was punished.
Soon after, was the revelation of , Abdulmumin Jibrin, when he alleged that top members of the national assembly had introduced unknown projects and inflated estimates into the budget. Despite several threats by the Federal Government, and a Federal High Court order mandating the President to probe those responsible for inserting questionable projects, no one has been brought to book; neither the crooked legislators nor the complicit civil servants.
He lamented that about N1 trillion had been appropriated in the 10 years to 2019 for the graft-driven “constituency projects” of federal lawmakers with hardly any impact.

Just like A sordid scenario played out during the signing of the 2022 Appropriation Bill, as The then President, Muhammadu Buhari , lamented that the provisions made for about 10,733 projects were reduced, while 6,576 new projects were introduced into the budget by the National Assembly. Buhari argued compellingly that the inclusion of the new provisions totalling N36.59 billion for national assembly projects in the Service-Wide Vote negates the principles of separation of powers and financial autonomy of the different arms of government.
Buhari complained that the reduction in the provisions for many strategic capital projects in favour of ‘empowerment’ projects was uncalled for since most of the inserted projects relate to matters that are basically the responsibilities of state and local governments. Despite lamenting that the cuts in the provisions for many projects would make them impossible to implement, Buhari still went ahead to sign it, vowing to send a supplementary budget proposal. Indeed, the reckless insertions made by legislators in the 2022 and previous years’ budgets are appalling. The irresponsible habit largely explains why national budgets since the Year 2000 have never been fully implemented and why poverty is rising. After the distortion by the national assembly, the budgets are un-implementable.
While assenting to the 2018 Appropriation Bill, he had lamented: “The National Assembly made cuts amounting to N347 billion in the allocations to 4,700 projects submitted to them for consideration and introduced 6,403 projects of their own amounting to N578 billion.” This is disgusting. In 2000, former President Olusegun Obasanjo refused to sign the budget passed by the National Assembly, claiming it had been padded with about N2 billion added to the National Assembly budget line. The president, at that time, also identified 15 other areas, which he said had not emanated from any MDA and had simply been inserted into the budget, and therefore refused to sign the document. The National Assembly basically threatened to remove the president through impeachment and since Obasanjo succumbed to the blackmail, the amount of padding has been growing exponentially since then. Late President Yar’Adua also experienced the same problem, making him refuse to sign the 2008 budget due to excessive padding, but he eventually reached a modus vivendi in which the padding was reduced, not removed completely, before he agreed to sign the budget.
Track up

It is a new government and a fresh allegations coming from senator abdul ningi who is cureently serving a three month suspension under the senate and national assembly leadership of godswill akpabio.
Track up
Nigerians must however unite to overcome the tyrannous habit of budget padding by federal legislators.
© IHIMHEKPEN OSCAR OGIEMHONYI