Budget: Ningi must be punished, Sen. Jimoh Ibrahim insists

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Senator Jimoh Ibrahim, representing Ondo South Senatorial District, has condemned the position of a Bauchi State Senator, Abdul Ningi, who said there are two versions of the 2024 Budget being implemented by the President Bola Tinubu administration.

Senator Ibrahim, who is a member of the Appropriation Committee in the Senate, said the Federal Government should charge Senator Abdul Ningi to court for criminal misinformation and breach of peace in the National Assembly and the country by extension.

Senator Ibrahim, who spoke to Senate correspondents on Monday, dismissed as untrue that the country has two Appropriation Acts as claimed by his colleague, Ningi.

Ibrahim also asked the Senate also to “as a matter of urgency, charge Senator Ningi for criminal misinformation, and conduct likely to breach the peace of the country.

“If the Senate will not do that within the next seven days, I will write a letter to the Inspector General of Police to investigate the cricumstatnce leading to the approval of two 2024 Appropriation Acts and bring the culprits to book.

“It is not true that we have two Appropriations. Senator Ningi must be charged to court for conduct likely to cause breach of peace and criminal misinformation.”

However, Senator Ningi, who represents Bauchi Central Senatorial District in the National Assembly, has made a U-turn regarding some claims he made regarding the 2024 Appropriation Act.

In a chat with Senate correspondents on Monday, the Chairman of the Northern Senators’ Forum, clarified that he never suggested that President Bola Tinubu is implementing two budgets or that he was biased against the North.

He clarified that he stands by his utterance as a Senator and not the Chairman of the Northern Senators’ Forum, that it has been established beyond doubt that N25trn was rightly allocated in the budget, citing three parameters (money, project and location) but cannot ascertain the project location for the other N3trn.

The Presidency had on Sunday described as false, a claim by Senator Ningi that the Federal Government is operating two versions of the 2024 budget.

According to a statement by a Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, the senator’s claim that the National Assembly passed N25 trillion as the 2024 Budget is false, adding that N28.7 trillion was passed and signed into law by President Tinubu.

The Presidency also described as “far-fetched and unbecoming of a leader of his status”, the claim by Senator Ningi, who represents Bauchi Central Senatorial District, that the 2024 Budget was anti-north.