By Akinwale Kasali
Suspended Senator Abdul Ningi, the representing of Bauchi North Senatorial District may soon get a reprieve from his colleagues in the Senate.
Ningi was handed a three- month suspension by the Senate for alleging that the Upper Chamber “padded“ the 2024 Budget to the tune of N3.7 trillion.
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Yemi Adaramodu, gave the hint of a possible pardon of the embattled Senator at a media parley in Abuja, on Monday.
The padded amount alleged by Ningi to the 2024 Budget represents more than 10 per cent of the N28.78 trillion budget passed by the National Assembly and assented to by President Bola Tinubu.
Adaramodu also used the opportunity to state that the suspension of Senator Ningi was a decision taken by 108 out of the 109 Senators whose integrity was subjected to public ridicule.
Adaramodu said, “ Yes, there was an infraction occasioned by the actions of our respected colleague, Senator Abdul Ningi, which made the Senate in an open public session, where he was given the opportunity to defend himself and for Senators to talk on it, debated on it, then at the end of the day it was found that an infraction had really occurred.
“And 109 senators except Senator Ningi now decided that Senator Ningi would be given a light disciplinary declaration which gave him a three month suspension from parliamentary activities.
“So, it is only that 108 senators that took that action that can call Senator Ningi back.
“Yes, like I said, we have been on plenary break for about four weeks. So, when we resume tomorrow, as the case may be, he’s our colleague, if he makes a plea, then the senators will now look at it and then we take it on the merit of it.
“When we were not in the chamber, there have been so many insinuations, they have been a report that a letter has been written by the counsel to Senator Ningi compelling the Senate President to recall Senator Ningi within seven days.
“ And then when I was asked a question I said, it’s not a matter of Senator Ningi versus Senator Akpabio. It’s Senator Ningi versus the rest of the senators. So, it is not Senator Akpabio, though our president, that took the action unilaterally and solely to suspend Senator Ningi.
“So it could not behoove on him to be the one who will now answer questions on the actions of all the senators, that all the senators will ask questions on their own behalf by the time we resume the plenary.
“We will resume plenary tomorrow,
so if the matter comes up, either directly or indirectly, either voluntarily or involuntarily, then we sit down together in the chamber and then we look at it on its own merit and consider an action to be taken. That’s what is happening about Senator Ningi’s matter for now.”
