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Chief Whip of the Senate, Senator Ali Ndume has revealed how much senior Senators and floor members of the Nigerian Senate received for constituency projects.
TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports the Senate has been rocked following allegations by Senator Abdul Ningi that the 2024 budget was padded and that approved projects were skewed to favour sections of the country.
As the Senate was being rattled by Ningi’s allegation, Senator Jarigbe Agom-Jarigbe claimed that some Senators got N500 million each from the 2024 budget for constituency projects.
Responding to the claims, Senator Ndume confirmed that some principal officers in the 10th National Assembly did receive more than the N200 million allocation for constituency projects in the 2024 Appropriation Act.
Asked when he featured in Channels TV’s Politics Today on Wednesday whether the claim by Agom-Jarigbe was true, Ndume said:
“It’s disparity now, we are not the same; all animals are equal but some are more equal than the other. That’s what the case is. They have agreed to that.
“All the Senators have N200 million (each) as their constituency projects but I am a leader. That is the difference. 10 of us are leaders including those in the opposition. We get more than the floor members. It’s normal.
“That decision is taken by the Senators. We have the Senate Budget Committee before but now the floor members entrusted that to the presiding officers. That’s the difference. So, most of the Senators don’t know what I get and I will not tell you.”
He contended that in the United States as well, discretionary powers are granted for constituency projects.
“Right now, Democrats have the majority, so they have more. In the Senate, we are very nice to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Senators despite the fact they didn’t treat us the same,” Ndume said.
Speaking further, the Senate Chief Whip said Ningi was trying to make 2024 projects an ethnic and political issue.
“I sat next to the Senate Leader (Opeyemi Bamidele), he was very angry of what Ningi did, but honestly me too, what he (Ningi) did was wrong because I was involved,” Ndume said.
“In the first instance, it started when they said capital project was skewed to the South.
“The total in that budget that was brought before us by the President was not up to N9 trillion, it was N8.9 trillion and they are talking of skewed capital project to the South and the total adding up to N15 trillion.
“That N15 trillion is strange, even with the amendment that we made, the capital component of this budget is not up to that.”
Ndume disclosed that when Ningi first presented the case to him, he told him to provide evidence but that he could not.
He insisted that as a senior member of the Senate, he can attest to the fact that the North was not shortchanged by the South in the 2024 budget as claimed by Ningi.