• Says Akpabio, Others Still Owe Nigerians Explanations
By Halimah Olamide
The presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the last general election Peter Obi, has said the senate has a whole lot of explanations to make over the N3.7trn budget padding allegations.
Obi said that the whistleblower was punished with a suspension has not addressed any issue.
He said for the Executive arm of the government to admit to a padding up to the tune of N1.2trn shows that series of underhanded actions had taken place against the interest of Nigerians.
Reacting to the controversy on Wednesday, Obi listed what the N1.2trn allegedly admitted by the Executive could be used to make life easier for Nigerians.
“The Senator is insisting on his allegation and the Executive agreed that there was only N1.2trillion padded not N3trillion as alleged by the Senator. Fresh allegations have also cropped up over indiscriminate and unbalanced allocation of constituency projects by the Senate leadership. A civic society group, Budgit, through their official, have also added their voice to agree with the Senator. They allege that there was no detailed project allocations for about N3.7trn in the 2024 Appropriation Act,” Obi wrote via his X handle
While insisting that the suspension of Ningi has not addressed the issue, Obi said the lawmakers “still owe the Nigerian public a clear clarification over the various claims and counterclaims, including that of the executive arm, to be able to know exactly what is happening.”
He said both the Executive and the Legislative arm need to tell the Nigerian people the exact amount allocated to constituency projects.
“Now that the executive arm has accepted that the padded amount is only N1.2 trillion, it is still a very significant amount, when you consider that it is almost 5 times the N251.47 billion proposed for Universal Basic Education, which is the foundation of education, in the Country. Today in Nigeria, the greatest challenge to human resource development is education, which has been identified as most critical at the basic level.
“Nigeria has about 20 million out-of-school children today because of the poor investment in education. These are resources that would have been utilised to ensure that our children are taken off the streets and returned to schools.
The N1.2 trillion which the executive branch admitted to having been padded if channelled into any of the critical areas of development, could have positively impacted the nation and uplifted the people.”
READ ALSO:
N3.7trn Budget Padding: PDP Asks Akpabio to Step Aside
Grilled by Senators; Wike Promises To Improve on Abuja Security