 fps 356 fps 8 s fps 506 fps 608 fps bulun le第二個 le le le le le le le le le le le le細 skkw ndwer tefiga lekha ind rare gotiures aiew Nad 7 5 7 6 6 7 9 9 8 the budget pardon scandal with some receiving 500 million and others as much as 100 billion Naira. This led to a rowdy session with Jariq-based claim causing a delay of nearly 30 minutes. The two documents we have here was shared to the 109 Senators of the Senate containing this document under the volume 1 paragraph 2, 3 and 4 is the breakdown of the 28.77 trillion budget that was passed. And from paragraph 7, 8 are the breakdown of the budget, which we call the budget details of the entire MDAs. And when you add this figure together as containing this document for the entire MDAs, it comes to 25.4 trillion Naira. If you are listening, all your agents have listened to the arise interview and the correspondent chapel interview, I said categorically the president powers stopped as a proposal budget. And I said there is no way the National Assembly will add anything on the budget and it becomes pardon. The tapes are there. I said the National Assembly has powers and you cannot call that powers pardon. And I said I'm very grateful to the Presidential Spokesman who encountered me said the National Assembly added 2.1, 1.27 trillion. And I was very clear. I was not aware of the addition. I was not even aware as I am seated here of the full budget of the National Assembly. But I am back on these issues and coming up with issues of the budget and individual issues concerning what came to our various constituencies. If we want to go into those issues, all of us are called Pebun. Some senators here, so-called senior senators got 500 million each. I am a ranking senator, I didn't get. Did I go to the price? Most of you got. And yes, if we want to go into those issues, excuse me, if we want to go into those issues, yes. Under Senate President Godwin, Gus Willapabi was leadership. Senator Ningdi was suspended for three months from parliament activities. Why Senator Kaur received a warning? Surely after his suspension, Senator Abdel Ningdi resigned his position as chairman of the Northern Senators Forum. Johnny knows very well. Actually for this topic are Deputy Directors of Economic Rights and Accountability Project, CERAP, a Development Analyst from Tostokumbu, member of Young Youth Parliament Abdel Numeen Eddi and in the studio with me is a Political Analyst, Mr. Mayewa Alakija. Gentlemen, you welcome to Plus Politics. Let me start with you. Mr. Alakija, what is your take of the melodrama? That took place on the floor of the hallowed floor of Nigeria Senate yesterday. Thank you very much. I would say that we have seen lots of drama at the National Assembly, but the current one that happened two days ago since last week when Senator Abdel Ningdi gave such an interview is a mother tearing entirely. Budget padding is not new to the Nigeria system when it comes to the National Assembly. But for me, I've been following up Senator Abdel Ningdi over time since 2003. He spent 12 years in House of Representatives. At the point he was the Deputy Majority Leader and is one of the eye ranking Senators, second time Senators. So at that level, if you are saying anything that happened, you should do a digstick. Have an insight of what you are presenting outside BBC because don't just throw something to create a kind of chaos within the political system. Okay, let me go to one of your colleagues who are joining us, who are with us virtually. How would you want to respond? What would be your initial servo? Okay, the gentleman in the car, can we go to him? Okay, thank you for having me on your show. Okay. The fact is that the Nigerian institution is becoming very worsening every day. The fact is the Nigerian Parliament is one of the most expensive in the world in terms of remuneration and the cost of maintenance. In the UK, the biggest salary is 2,200 pounds. Why the member of the British Parliament end about 7,100 pounds monthly? In Germany, it is 10,000 dollars. In Nigeria, the biggest salary, the remuneration and other security votes is about 40,000 dollars monthly. Now, a country of 200 million populations with GDP of less than 5 million dollars that is spending about 80% of its revenue on debt servicing should not be spending 40,000 dollars per senator. As logical as your point may seem, you live in England. Have you ever gone to the door of your member of parliament to tell your member of parliament that your wife just gave birth and needed to give you money? Have you ever done that? No, I have not done that. You have not done that? That is the culture in Nigeria. We cannot be talking about development. We cannot be talking about addressing poverty and do it in this way. I have a chance to work with the British Parliament. To me, in my opinion, adding is like bribing the parliament to pass the budget. And this year, the budget is 27.5 trillion naira. If the president is spending about 9 trillion, 3 trillion dollars to bribe for a budget of 27 trillion, which is about 9%. What I suggest to all is that 30% of that budget may have been manipulated. Let me go to one of your colleagues and come back. The other gentleman fixed his audio challenge now. Hello? Yes, I think I can hear you now. You can hear me? Yes, I can hear you now. Fantastic. Now, what would be your initial response to the pollock that I read out in introducing the show? Okay, so I could not hear you from the beginning. Maybe you should just recap what you said. Okay, what is the summary of your take of the scenario that played out on the floor of the other chambers of the Niger Senate yesterday? Okay, so my simple take as a young person is that that was very shameful. We run representative democracy in Nigeria and all of our democracy is our parliament. And when such things come up in the parliament, it is the detriment of the integrity of the parliament. Now, the parliament is there to checkmate the executive. If the parliament is having its integrity at stake, then honestly, what specifically just wanting to laser in on the specifics now, what specifically was shameful to you because to the best of my understanding, legislative chambers all over the world because they are people, because they are people with egotistic characters are usually given to fracker. So, what specifically was shameful for you yesterday? What is budget padding in a liberal democracy where the legislature is constitutionally empowered with the power of appropriation? What is the meaning of budget padding? Does it not seem to you that it is in itself a misuse of terminology? The ultimate institution that has the right to pass the appropriation bill is the legislature, the National Assembly. The executive may submit anything. Review the budget or pass the appropriation bill. Review or pass. The budget proposal comes from the executive as a proposal. A proposal is not a law and the legislature is the embodiment of the representation of all the constituencies in Nigeria. And each person representing a constituency be it at the level of representatives or at the level of the Senate has the powers to argue, to lobby his colleagues or colleagues to make sure that some preferences are given to projects in his or constituencies. So, what is the definition of budget padding? Well, you see, that definition is alien to parliament in all honesty. It's alien to parliament. I think depending on who is using it and why the person is using it is where the movie reads from. If the person is making use of that terminology of course it would be mischievous to a lot of people. But given, let's quickly do this before I go to one of your colleagues. Given the opportunity that was given to Nengi yesterday and the fact that Nengi was privy every member of the by camera legislature every member was privy to the deliberations and the ultimate approval by the two chambers of the bill that went to the president for signature. What has Nengi proven now? Honestly, I think the old claim has been refuted by the chairman of Senate Committee on Appropriations because it came out and it gave a breakdown on some of those things that were not detailed in the budget that he probably had and everything from what I the documents I could see seems like they made up for all of those things. Now the problem with Nengi or Senegal Nengi is probably that he had concerns they were proper channels through which he could have raised and clarified your concerns by working up to the Senate leadership but it didn't do that. It went straight to the media and if you look at the standing orders of the National Assembly there are procedures on how to address this issue I come back to you sir. Nengi was privy to the deliberations of the passage of the bill that ultimately became the Appropriation Act 2024. He did not raise his concerns. Nengi after even the Appropriation Act was signed into law had every opportunity to have to have heard his reservations he did not do it. He took the opportunity of BBC AUSA service that could actually instigate serious security situation to not only mouth it but he made a claim that won't give him the fear of sharing opportunity you could not substantiate what would be your response to Thank you very much. I don't have problem as regards the platform Senator Nengi used to present his case or when or out he presented his case but my concern is simple when you are presenting a case you need to point because when you look at it critically there is no place in the appropriation bill that was sent by the presidency where we can see 25 trillion era what was sent was 27.5 trillion era and what was approved approved at the end of the day was 28.77 trillion era so at that point I have a concern that as a high ranking senator at the National Assembly you should be able to present a case at its is appropriately because what he has done is simple I know only the party issue that he presented when he was interviewed he also said that 2024 budget happens to be an entire northern region budget which is enough to cause chaos division within the Bejewa system so that is what we need at this time the gentleman in England the gentleman in UK you may be in other part of UK there are four nations that make up a United Kingdom England being one so I wouldn't know where you are England what how would you look in a bit more forensically how the facts as they seemed to have played out how would you would you not want to believe that this may have been Osnato Ningen's allegation may have been driven by say internal politics of the chamber of the upper chamber of course there may be many factors that make this need to come at this point of time to relay his fact that the budget was padding that was the element of padding in the budget but the fact is that it may be probably because from his accusation Osnato got higher shares of the budget than some part of the Osnato so the fact remains that it may not be doing it in the state of the nation it may be on the interest on its own personal interest but the fact is clear that there is possibly that the budget was padding and what the would you please enlighten our viewers what you mean by budget padding and we then use the British parliament as the best example of what what you mean by budget padding from the Nigerian perspective from what has happened since the era of president of Osnato my own definition of padding is like bribing the parliament to pass the budget and Michael said earlier bribing as in please educate us bribing as in what do you mean by bribing because it is the functions I mean when the executive forget the budget to the legislation it has to be investigated forensically to make sure that I mean those funds are allocated to the appropriate quarters it is like passing the budget without those for a state investigation so I mean there are a lot of lies there I mean the only way the parliament protect their name rather than suspending this NATO so get the budget to forensic investigation in the western countries the only the ways that we we press a legislation we pass the B we engage different actors can be the lobby groups the pressure groups of the trade unions they lobby their legislator to pass the B last year a US NGO recruited me to lay out with the North Korean member of parliament to propose a legislation that will ensure that the UK commit to the the UN recommendation for intention development the UN recommendation to commit to international assistance before we go into some details would you know that in the UK the executive prepares the budget they propose to parliament and ultimately whatever parliament passes and is majesty the king science would be the appropriation art for that year that's how it works those budgets must go through forensic investigation what do you mean by forensic investigation what do you mean by forensic investigation what I mean by forensic investigation what I'm saying I think it's only 3 trillion and I think it's not getting ఇంసియాని కిసియినినా టికిటినిపౠని సిమాత౿నె తంవరికంటీగినూ నిసిల్సిక౎ మింరరిను కివరినిక్టిటి చతటికితోనినికమటికటోటికోటట � COVID circumstances. By tom Mark's థాడ trabajando Buddha, by mainstream థారిరూ plants kind of ఇదారిచిదినంచి. ఇదింిటవానంచ੍గతా. హథచక౿రి. కఅటి below కర�asing. Can you be said, or can you be said to have done something wrong when you act in a position that the law empowers you to acting? Can a parliament be said to have padded a document that they have the priority to define how... Look, is one thing for the budget to speak to the development that we need or developmental strategy that we need is another thing for the budget to be seemingly bukanya as we seem to have it but when I hear the word padding, how is it padding when the two chambers of the National Assembly are in build with the constitutional prerogative to determine what the president will sign into law So where is the word padding coming in? That is to say that people go into government in Nigeria for their own private benefit, not for them to save. In the west, in the developed country, you say when you go to public services it's to save the people, to stop your community. You are not going to save your own interest. And as for the padding, it's not a new thing that has been over the years since the president passed on. Okay, let me give the other gentleman the opportunity to also make his own contribution. Sa, are you still on with us? Yes, I am. How would you want to contribute at this juncture to where we are? Okay, so this is what I am going to say. When it comes to appropriation bill, the parliament has two functions, the executive has two functions. The executive has the duty to track the appropriation bill as well as implement the appropriation bill. While the legislation has the duty to approve the appropriation bill and oversee the implementation of the appropriation bill. The problem that occurs most of the time is because our democracy is constructed in a way whereby legislators find themselves doing some of the duties of the executive. Now, that is where the issue of constitutional allocation comes from. Several times that we are arguing that consistency allocations are illegal. And we need to look into it. But can we help it? Because are people expecting legislators to construct roads, they expect legislators to build houses for them, to feed them, to empower them. These are the issues. Now, this brings us to the situation where the legislature finds itself also trying to implement a budget that is supposed to oversee. And when issues like this come up, crisis will arise because people will not trust you to want to oversee yourself. You are part of the implementing body. And you also want to oversee what you are implementing. So I think this is where the issue of integrity of the national assembly. Let me just ask you this question before I come back to the studio. In so much as I would not want Nigeria to go in that direction or replicate that melody in the American legislative system, but you must have heard of a phrase in America called Poc Barrel, Poc Barrel system. Have you ever heard about it? Poc Barrel means that when the executive wants some legislators in America, either members of the House of Representatives or members of the American Senate, you know what they do? They bribe them with projects in their constituencies. Projects that they can't refuse. Maybe projects that they've been chasing for years. And they just put it there. Have you ever heard in the American political system a bridge to nowhere? In fact, a bridge was literally was built in the constituency in America that ended going nowhere because they wanted to please the representative of that constituency. That is bad enough that we should learn not to replicate it. So when I hear political analysts in Nigeria talking about budget pardon, bribing, in any liberal democracy, can anyone of you, does anyone of you know of any liberal democracy where sometimes the executive does not pay, does not pay to debate of the legislature? I'm talking of liberal democracy. I'm not talking of North Korea. I'm not talking of Putin's Russia. I'm not talking of quote-unquote liberal democracies where parliament is. Can I just come up? Let me just quickly respond to that. Please. So it is true that this happens in parliament because the duties of representatives is not just to oversee more government is doing. They also have the duty to pass things to their constituencies. Now, the way I'm mad at that this is done is where the issue arises from. Thank you very much. We come back to you. Let's give Mr. Lakiga. I wouldn't know. My brief tells me that you are a political analyst. And to be honest with you, I'm sitting there as a Nigerian. Who was once a politician in England? They actually literally contested elections on the platform of the Conservative Party in England. I'm sitting there feeling when people are disillusioned about the quality of politics in their politics. When people are disillusioned about how their politicians are seen to be engaging with day-to-day issues, everything becomes a source of displeasure and allegation. In this instance, I would rather that people are based our politicians for not being up to par in getting us out of the mess that we are in. But when I hear budget pardon, when I hear some terminologies that are seemingly, I don't know your response, but you seem to be one amongst the three guests who don't quite believe in the terminology budget pardon. What is your take? Thank you very much. Budget pardon is used since the time of Obasanjo. Then we have Yara Dua, the same thing occurred. We have good luck to Natan. We said something about budget pardon. When it came in, we said budget pardon. And now we have President Bola Menci. We are still talking about budget pardon. We forgot about budget pardon. We actually entrenched the infamy in our political escography. But my concern is this. Senator Mingi is ironically senator. If truly we have budget pardon in our system, I think he is the right person to ion that out to make Nigeria to know that truly we have budget pardon within our political system. What to make me? It was initially $25 trillion as against $27.5 trillion and $28.77 trillion was approved. And Senator Olam Muneqaduola was able to come aboard and explain why they even added $1.6 trillion in the budget. So I felt disappointed. So the point we are discussing now is not either there is budget pardon or there is budget pardon. I felt disappointed because senator Abumini should have been able to convince Nigerians that truly we have budget pardon. And because I think what we are about is not political. I think it is imperative at this juncture that I mention that out there in the social media sphere, Nengi is winning. And the reason why Nengi is winning is that Nigerians are generally disillusioned with how our representatives are representing us. So anybody who is a naysayer will naturally be playing to the gallery. Tokumba in the UK. Yes. At this juncture, what would be your contribution thus far? Or are you still obstinately holding on to your belief in the existence of the phrase budget pardon? Yes. The budget of the pardon is as my friend has said. The fact is that since Tinnungu became the president, he has promised to do things differently from his predecessor. He should march his actions with this word. Because the biggest problem we have in Nigeria is corruption. And if you must get it right, if you must address poverty, it must simply take root within the solution that works as far as long as corruption is concerned. At the moment, we have no solution to address corruption. We have no solution. About a week ago, the first lady went to a state in the north and said the kidnappers should face death penalty. I believe that not just the knowledge of corruption, even the corrupt politicians should face death penalty because if you don't stimulate capital punishment for corruption, we are not going to get it right. And we need to address corruption. If we address our corruption, we will address about 80% of the general problems. We are going to address banditry, kidnapping, internal insecurity, high inflation, high interest rate, everything. So we need a solution that works as far as corruption is concerned. That's the main problem that we have to find to get it right in Nigeria. Which of you gentlemen represents Syrap? Is Syrap... Okay. Because my next question, ordinarily, let me go to... I guess... I'll do women in ADD. Yes, I can. Okay. I guess, okay. You are a youth leader. You are the representative. You are a member of the Niger Youth Parliament. Yes, I am. Fantastic. Let me acknowledge. Let me play the role of Mingi in this instance. Would it not be the fact that civil society organizations in themselves fell in holding parliamentarians to account during a period as important as when the deliberations on the passage of the budget is going on that has brought us to this point. Because what budget is now doing, itemizing some of the most ridiculous allocations in the extant Appropriation Act 2024. They could have done it when the Appropriation Bill was still in deliberations. Where billions are located for the building of an Anglican church hall. Where billions are located to one school, one in no-call school, not a Modo Belyo University, not University of Ibadan, not in Suka, not one in no-call further education technician. Billion for all. Does that not speak to the fact that even those in the CSO community in Nigeria just liked to play to the gallery when issues like this happen, they are not even holding a political class to account. How would you respond to that? Yes, and it will be right because you don't... It will be in the media, it will be in my constituency. Because if we, the two of us, if the two constituencies have done our jobs right, it will not take either the genuine motivation or the mysterious motivation that will now make us to be retroactively be forensically examining a document that is slapping us because even as an agent, I feel insulted with this body. Yes, yes. So the thing is this right, the fact that we are going to have this conversation is good for us as a nation because I mean... Better later never, yes. In some places these conversations will not be performed right. So we are evolving democracy and I hope I know that very soon we will get there. Now the civil society groups, sometimes when notices are put out for a public hearing in the National Assembly, we do not know, we do not have an account of how many of the civil society groups actually go there, what are their contributions, what are the feedbacks, how do they follow up on some of these issues. The civil society groups hold Nigerians a responsibility of giving us accurate information whenever they have the opportunity to interact with these stakeholders. My parliament is not the civil society group. We actually are under the National Assembly but we also contributes to some of these things. So I think we all need to do better as Nigerians. So are you trying to play, are you trying to place in the top, are you trying to place in the top, what is the name for me now, I was not there, you know. That's what I see you doing now. What I said is that my parliament also has a duty in this, as a matter of fact, the public hearing that was held in relation to the constitution review, we were there and were there ready to make contributions to how the constitution should be reviewed, some of the things that needs to be looked into. So what I'm saying is we all have a duty to the people of this country because everybody cannot be there, you know, parliamentarians or legislators are privileged people, they have access to privileged information which other Nigerians do not have access to. So it is the duty of the civil society groups and all other pressure groups to extract this information from these persons and make it available to the average Nigerians. Now we must be constructive in all of these things because you know we are just coming out of a very keenly contested election and the country is still very fragile and there's hunger in the land, there's a lot of pressure so we need to be very careful and we'll send it to Nengi to do it and for me, I think it's not right because there are proper channels for resolving these issues. The issue is sensitive, if we have these concerns, there are ways to address it. I'll come back to you. I'll come back to you. Mr. Edidi seems to be agreeing with you that maybe Nengi overplayed his hand or was not circumspect enough in the way he managed the information or the disgruntlement he felt he had with this. Now would you... Or maybe just maybe it could have been a flopper or could it have ultimately helped us all to be a bit more vigilant with how the budget processes are articulated? I think it could have helped us if Mr. Nengi had done the needful, if what he presented during the interview is substantiated. However, the point is that what he did is more politically driven and personal interest driven than for the interest of all Nigerians because if you look at it critically and many senators have commented, many analysts have said one thing or the other and you look at whatever that is happening at the National Assembly, so everything has also been regionalized. As I yesterday, one of the senators, Senator Ban Midele made mention that, look, from 1990 days, the Senate presidency have always been in the northern region more than the southern region, but anytime we have the northern senators it is one impeachment to the other and I also felt that Senator Nengi was more personal against the Senate presidents because a proposition bill is passed by the National Assembly not by the Senate presidents. So when you are mentioning, you attend an interview, you are mentioning the name of the Senate president, you are mentioning the name of the president, so it's more or less like you are fighting with the presidency and the Senate president for the interest of the general Nigerian and you also know that the social media is another platform that we cannot rule out in our system. What social media picks the drive rate across both so even if it can be substantiated or not, once they show that this thing is anti the government of the day, they drive it massively. So we have to not only anti the government of the day, once it's an anti establishment because you know what. I have to see your concern. I have to see your concern. Because people are, it's just natural in any polity when majority of the citizenry of the country of the polity when they are disgruntled, there is transfer of aggression across all issues and it's not peculiar to Nigeria. Nigerians are feeling at home by so if anybody is in leadership now they will ambased a lot of you if you drop the ball. So let me give you the opportunity to enrich today's episode of plus politics with your epilogue. How do you want to sign out? So what I want to say is that President Putin will try to do things differently because he is claiming that he is going to follow the path of his criticism. We should show it by action. Me, we are in a terrible economy but we cannot afford this kind of taste, pardon, corruption, public stealing. We can't afford it anymore. Nigeria cannot wait. We need a solution that will work with. We need to manage our economy very prudently, financially. The common people will benefit from the common way. Our crisis is crashing every day. The only problem is going up. Everything is collapsing. We can't afford this. We need to do this differently. We need, we should not be fully business we should not be there to be followed by the year. We need to add the car push to teams. We need to, I mean, when every ounce of the Nigerian sector need reform, we need to try from the judicial sectors in the security sector and even the legislature sector. In the executive, things are going gradually but governor is not just about the executive. We need to talk, think about the judiciary as well. Two years ago, I was in touch with them at the Nigerian international territory in Lagos where we have the, the minister of defense come to make some presentation and was appealing to the public that the judiciary are not working when they arrest Boko Haram. I mean, I never got to the court. They are not being prosecuted for his presentation. Only about 50% of those were prosecuted. You live, you live in a society that could be said to relatively work when when members of the executive come out to land-based judicial officers, you must be very reticent to accept whatever they say uklan and sinker because the prosecution of criminals start or accused persons starts with the executive. You have in the UK as we have in Nigeria a department called Department of Public Prosecution. It is when they have gathered evidences and when they find a tidy case that a judge haven't listened to the prosecution and the defense will give a ruling. Don't let people be playing to the diary when you are in front of them. That is why some of the things you say I share your sentiments but I still need to be speaking to constitutional facts as they are and as they operate in mostly broad democracies. There will be some other time my brother. ADD, I cannot both sign up with you by letting you respond to the fact that you are a member of the Niger Youth Parliament and I know you occasionally have opportunities to ignore with members of the substantive parliament. What do you guys even tell them about the feelings of people out there especially youths like yourself? Well, so we work with every arm of government to put the executive as a legislator. The important thing for us is to let them know where it pinches our youths and the people at large and we do this from time to time. Just today in Lagos the discussion about the open market projects that the Lagos State government is doing we sent in some youth representatives to join the projects so that the opportunities can also reach out to the young people. Now we do this from time to time. However, I would like to appeal to our people and to our leaders at large our people need to learn to understand the difference between all these hands of government. So long as we keep reaching out to the legislators to execute projects to do environment we would keep having issues like object padding we would keep having it. Now to the leaders and to the also to the national assembly in particular they need to brand the image of the national assembly. This is not good for our democracy I must tell you. On that advice on that advisory note Mr. Edidi let's just say thank you for having added value to the program today. How would you want to sign out Mr. Lakiga? What I would say is simple I want to charge the civil society to do more because what we are doing now is metting after that if civil society can start up to their responsibility and get themselves more involved in the process of the appropriations process I think some of these things should have been pointed out. We have been saying this close to 20 years if not more than 20 years of my concern is that we have not been able to substantiate anything so far because if a senator that said that this upon at the floor of the earth is apologizing that it didn't mean to say that so we need to do more so that it won't come here 2025 and say that the budget has been further done or not so it's all our collective responsibility we want a better Nigeria we want better things to and I also want to try the national assembly to do more because their responsibility is to checkmate the activities of the executive so we all do more and ensure that we have a better Nigeria. Thank you very much Mr. Lakiga Thank you very much every you are live in our studios at the Victoria Island Lagos That is where we wrap it up for today I really want to say thank you to all of you watching at home we hope in some respects your day has been legalized I ham have a good evening