By Gideon Njoku
Usman Yusuph, a Professor of Haematology/Oncology and a specialist in Bone Marrow Transplant, has called for the resignation of Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, from office.
Professor Usman, a regular commentator on political issues and former Executive Secretary of the NHIS spoke on Arise Television Saturday just as the ante has continued to go up over the allegation of padding the 2024 Budget made against the Senate by Senator Abdul Ningi.
Ningi, PDP, representing Bauchi Central District, had, in an interview with BBC Hausa Service, alleged that the Senate padded the Budget with the sum of N3.7trn. He also alleged there are two different versions of the Budget.
Irked by his allegations which they dismissed as totally false, and according to the Senate Leader, Michael Opeyemi Bamidele, APC, Ekiti Central, a civilian coup, Ningi was slammed with a three-month suspension on Tuesday, during Plenary.
However, instead of the allegations to go away, they have been worsened by more uncomfortable revelations. For instance, a couple of Senators who spoke at Plenary, revealed that each Senator received a whopping sum of between N200m and N500m for what they called Constituency Project.
Senator Jarigbe Agom-Jarigbe revealed that some Senators got N500m from the Budget, a revelation confirmed by Bamidele. In confirming it, Bamidele asked constituents to watch out if the money would not be spent by their Senators within one year. Revelations were also made of (another) two to five billion Naira to Senators for their Constituencies. Ningi, for instance said while his Constituency got two billion Naira, only, some others got five billion.
However, the most confounding was the revelation that Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, got an unbelievable sum of N21bn for his Constituency.
Professor Usman, who expressed outrage over what has been described as “an obscene so-called money for Constituency Project” to National Assembly Members, told Arise Television that he was ashamed of the Senate. He urged the Senators to return the hundreds of millions of Naira given to them for Constituency Projects, and noted that they should be ashamed of carting such an amount of money while the masses were dying of hunger. But he reserved the harshest criticism for Akpabio.
While describing the N21bn allegedly allocated to Akpabio for his Constituency as sacrilegious, he asked the Senate President to not only return the money but to resign from office.
For the records, Usman is not the only one who has called for the resignation of Akpabio from office. Main Opposition Party, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in its reaction to the “largesse”, also, asked Akpabio to step down. But in a swift response, the Senate has said Akpabio is going nowhere.
And lending its voice to the raging controversy, the Association of Northern Nigerian Students issued a 48-hour notice to the Senate to recall Ningi to the Senate or expect an occupation of the National Assembly by its members.
While the controversy rages, Senator Ningi has alerted of a plan to arrest him. But arrest or not, one thing is certain. The sh$t has already hit the fan, and confirms Ningi’s assertion that neither he nor the Senate can contain the can of worms he has opened – courtesy, his BBC Hausa Service outing.
