‘I Don’t Know Your Take Home Pay – Ningi Fights Back, Attacks Akpabio While Defending His Budget Padding Allocation

In an unprecedented manner, Senator Abdul Ningi from Bauchi State, doubled down on his grievances with the 2024 budget on Tuesday, attacking Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, saying, “As I speak, I don’t know your take home pay. But you know mine.”

Ningi, who brought in heavy documents to explain what he said regarding the 2024 budget following an interview on the BBC Hausa Service, took the Senate through what he said during the interview, raising several concerns concerning the budget.

He denied mentioning Akpabio or accusing him of padding the budget.

He said he as the Chairman of the Northern Senators Forum (NSF) met with members of the forum and unbundled the budget and found out that there were a lot of anomalies.

He said having found out that over N3trn was without items, he confronted Akpabio with it.

“I came to you, we sought an audience with you. And you listened to us.

“We explained to you what was wrong with the budget,” he said he explained to Akpabio their discoveries.

The Peoples Democratic Party senator pointed out that, “Some senatorial districts have a budget of N120bn but my senatorial district has N3bn. Some others have N50bn, some N10bn.

“I don’t have any car allocated to me but it’s in the budget.

“As I speak, I don’t know the name of your aides,” he said.

The Senate descended into a rowdy session forcing Akpabio to step in.

Akpabio did not deny his meeting with the NSF but said “While you were speaking you deviated,” explaining that Nigerians must be told of what happened in view of the publication.

“This is not the speech I expected. I expected the speech of someone who would say I was misquoted but you went back to Arise to defend yourself and you are here saying you have documents.

“We wanted you to repair it with your speech but instead you said you have documents to prove.”