Aside From Padding Budgets, What Else Do You Do?

Nigerian comedian and actor, Bright Okpocha, better known as Basketmouth, has quizzed Nigerian senators over their responsibility to the country, aside from ‘padding budgets’.

This comes amidst the suspension of the Senator representing Bauchi Central in the National Assembly, Senator Abdul Ningi, from all legislative duties.

Naija News reported that Ningi, a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), was suspended for three months during Tuesday’s plenary over allegations of padding the 2024 budget.

In a post on his Instagram story, Basketmouth tackled the Nigerian Senators, asking what they had done to favour the average Nigerian in the past 50 years.

He wrote, “I’ve got a question. Aside from padding budgets, what else do our senators do? Like… What have they done in the past 50 years that favoured the average Nigerian?”

Meanwhile, the Co-Founder of civic group Budgit, Seun Onigbinde, has stated that Senator Abdul Ningi was right about his claims that there were no detailed project allocations for about N3.7trn of the N28.78trn 2024 Appropriation Act.

Onigbinde stated this during a guest appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Tuesday.

However, he insisted that it was not true that Nigeria was running two concurrent budgets.

Onigbinde said as the rowdy session by Senate was ongoing, the Budgit team fact-checked claims by Ningi.