Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Nasarawa State, Hon. Aliyu Bello, has said the allegation of budget padding by the suspended Senator Abdul Ningi.

Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Nasarawa State, Hon. Aliyu Bello, has said the allegation of budget padding by the suspended Senator Abdul Ningi (PDP, Bauchi Central), was a plot to impeach Senate President Godswill Akpabio.

Bello in an interview with newsmen in Abuja, blamed the circumstances that led to Ningi’s suspension on the “antics of senators habouring a misguided sense of entitlement, who feel they must either control the Senate or they sink it.”

Recall that Ningi, who was chairman of the Northern Senators Forum before his suspension had in an interview with the BBC Hausa Service, alleged that what the Senate debated and passed on the floor as budget for 2024 fiscal year was N25 trillion and not the N28 trillion being implemented by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, claiming that another budget was passed “underground.”

He said N3.7 trillion inserted into the budget was not linked to any projects or location, saying the Northern Senators would engage the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on the matter.

But Bello said: “I want to draw their attention to the fact that the North produced the senate president in the past eight years under the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari. If there was anything a Northerner could have done as Senate President, that period provided a golden opportunity.

“What these lawmakers are interested in is only the raw power which they continuously use to their personal advantage. They will not get what they want. Senator Akpabio has been doing his best to support the President Bola Tinubu administration. We won’t allow fifth columnists to derail him.

“As far as the facts are concerned, Senator Ningi was only being mischievous and acting the script of those who may want to derail Akpabio’s leadership of the 10^th Senate. The North held sway on the position of Senate President for 16 years under Obasanjo, Jonathan and Buhari. Except they are now saying that Mark, Saraki and Lawan are not Northerners.

“Senator Akpabio emerged through a keenly contested election. They should instead line up behind him and support him to succeed in his assignment.”

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