Senator Ningi: “You Cannot Be Judge in Your Court”, Akpabio, Others Knocked
- Godswill Akpabio-led Senate leadership has again been knocked for suspending Senator Abdul Ningi over the alarm raised on budget padding and humongous constituency project allocations
- Barrister Oladotun Hassan, while speaking with Legit.ng, said the action of the Senate abused the rights of the suspended senator
- Hassan also maintained that the senator had raised a fundamental issue, which is the huge money allocated for their constituency, adding that most of the projects did not have specific tags
Ikeja, Lagos - The Nigerian Senate has again been knocked over the suspension of Abdul Ahmed Ningi, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) senator from s, and the humongous constituency projects the lawmakers got in the 2024 budget.
Barrister Oladotun Hassan, a Section for Public Interest and Development Law (SPIDEL) member, in an exclusive interview with Legit.ng, condemned the development in the Godswill Akpabio-led Nigerian Senate.
Source: Twitter
Why was Senator Ningi suspended?
In an interview with BBC Hause, Senator Ningi alleged that President Bola Tinubu was implementing a 2024 budget whose appropriation was higher than the national assembly debated and approved.
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But after hours of debating the allegation, the senator was suspended for three months over failure to present evidence for his claim.
In his reaction, Barrister Hassan maintained that the development was an "infringement on the fundamental rights of Senator Ningi." The legal icon stressed that "you cannot be the judge in your court", which he stated was a central principle of fair hearing.
Barrister Hassan queries senators' constituency project allocations
Speaking on the constituency project monies allocated to the senator, the legal luminary said:
"Issues that are fundamentally raised are not sensational issues. These are issues of money appropriated, collected and signed for by senators for constituency projects without the disclosure to their constituencies that they collected such money on their behalf.
"We have always been emboldened and entrenched in this corrupt web of budget padding. We know what that cost us some years back. During the Jonathan era, in the House of Reps, we have gotten a series of records of what and how senators orchestrate this practice."
Adeola, Banideke knocked for positions on the senate budget
He condemned Senators Olamilekan Adeola and Opeyemi Bamidele's dispositions, saying they were wrongly posited.
"It is nauseating that we are not following the principles of democracy." He posited that collected constituency project money is an aberration ab initio because the same projects have been budgeted at the state and federal allocations. He noted that the women's and humanitarian affairs ministries are doing the same constituency projects.
He asked:
“Where is the synergy of deliverables? There are a lot of copy and paste in these projects. How did they even arrive at those prices in order to give a tag to it?"
He maintained that the lawmakers did not provide clarity for the constituency projects. Adding that, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) should be allowed to step in and investigate the constituency project monies the senators have collected in the past.
2024 Budget: Senator who publicly admits to getting N500m
Legit.ng earlier reported that the Nigerian Senate was recently caught in a budget padding scandal following the alarm Senator Abdul Ahmed Ningi raised in an interview with the BBC Hausa. The Bauchi senator alleged that President Bola Tinubu was implementing a 2024 budget different from what was debated and passed by the national assembly.
The Senate subsequently suspended Senator Ningi for three months after it was concluded that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Senator could not substantiate his allegation with concrete evidence.
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Source: Legit.ng
