Senator representing Bauchi central at the National Assembly, Abdul Ningi has denied the alleged N3trillion 2024 budget padding controversial statement attributed to him saying he never said so.
According to the senator, those attacking him either have not listened to the interview or did not understand it because of language barrier.
Ningi who cleared the air on the matter Monday, said he spoke in his personal capacity, adding “everything that you heard in my Hausa interview has to do with my personal perspective.
Although he is the chairman of Northern Senators’ Forum (NSF), he said “I’m not representing NSF, I don’t speak for NSF. The interview I had was in my capacity as a senator and as an opposition senator. It has no bearing at all on the NSF position on any matter.
“At no time did I say Bola Tinubu is implementing two budgets. At no time did I say Bola Tinubu is biased against the North. At no time did I say Bola Tinubu is implementing N25 trillion budget. The Hausa version is there.
I’m here to attempt to summarize to you, members of the press, what I said in my Hausa interview about a week today. I was speaking on the state of the nation and among other things, I lamented how the North found itself at the receiving end.
“The first example I gave was my president from my own party, Goodluck Jonathan for his failure to dredge the River Niger. Secondly, I also mentioned former President Buhari for his failure to anything on Ajaokuta, Mambila and as small as the road from Abuja to Kaduna.
“I came to President Bola Tinubu and said I don’t blame Tinubu for doing what he is doing because while he was campaigning, Northern leaders, particularly from his party have not extracted commitment that if he won what he would do for the North. I said that.
I also said, before President Tinubu came to power, did not understand the difficulty in running a very complex country like ours. I said it
Therefore, I was at a loss. Among other things, I also said, in the course of our perusing the budget, which Onanuga seemed to have dwelled upon, I said we have established beyond reasonable doubt N25 trillion so far has nexus in the budget i.e there is money, there is project and there is location. But we are yet to ascertain N3 trillion of that budget, its place and location. I said budget evaluation is ongoing.
I said lastly, the intention of Northern Senators as regards to the budgetary allocation was to meet the Senate President with our findings and subsequently meet President Bola Tinubu without findings. If one is questioning our desire to relate with Bola Tinubu, how will I say that the findings of Northern Senators’ Forum will go to the Senate President and Bola Tinubu, the President and Commander-in-Chief
He made it clear that he is not a regional person, but he is from the North and the leadership of the Senate made him chairman, adding that in the past he was chairman of Niger Delta crisis and he traversed through the creeks. “I know the creeks more than an average south southerner”.
Therefore, he was very surprised that Bayo Onanuga, the Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Communication chose to “come out with a press release against my person without understanding the subject matter”.
“I never granted my interview in English. The Hausa version of the interview is here with me. Unfortunately, the people who took the story to Bayo did it with the sole aim of tarnishing my image. And Bayo went to the extent of calling me a liar. Bayo did not listen to my Hausa interview, he did not get a good translation of my Hausa interview.
However, Ningi, said he just wanted to clear this ambiguity, adding that he has the full text of the Hausa version and he was not afraid of any punishment like suspension for exercising his freedom to speak his mind, but said Northern senators should be left out the whole matter.
