The Senate has suspended Senator Abdul Ningi (PDP; Bauchi) for three months for alleging that Nigeria’s 2024 budget was padded, at a media interview. The controversy surrounding the 2024 budget was re-ignited by this allegation that it was padded to the tune of about N3.7 trillion, representing more than 10% of the N28.78 trillion budget. Ningi’s suspension followed a motion of urgent national importance moved by the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola, to address the allegation by Senator Ningi. Following a lengthy debate, the Senate resolved to suspend Senator Ningi over what it calls violations of legislative rules, allegations of misconduct, and unethical behaviour for the interview he granted on BBC Media on the 2024 Appropriation Act.
The Nigerian 2024 national budget has been subject of controversy since it was presented by President Tinubu to the National Assembly in a joint session on November 29, 2023. The budget which was presented more than two months behind schedule, was met with the initial controversy of its full contents not being made available to the members of the National Assembly who were supposed to pass it. Then there was the added controversy that the Presidency wanted the budget passed soon after its presentation. This meant that the National Assembly which received the budget, hurriedly, without adequate information and in the absence of full consideration, passed the budget on December 30, 2023, with the President unprecedentedly signing the 2024 Appropriation Bill into law on January 1, 2024.
The 2024 Appropriation Act was supposed to be President Tinubu’s first full-year budget as President and was to represent a statement about his administration’s fiscal direction and outlook. Unfortunately, the circumstances of the passage of the Appropriation Act, the uncertainty around its actual contents and the absence of any clear indication of the budget direction, has created serious doubts about the administration’s ability to effectively manage the economy.
Since the budget was passed, the economy has nosedived and the several indices and indicators contained in the budget appear to have been impacted. Predicated on the naira exchange rate of N750 per $1, production volume of 1.78 million barrels of crude oil at $77.96 per barrel and a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth forecast of 3.76% , it is unclear how the 2024 budget will accomplish its set goals. Naira value has dipped unprecedentedly, exchanging at more than double the budget parameter. The projected rate of inflation of 21.4% in the budget now seems like a mirage with the inflation rate rising up to 29.9% in January 2024. The interest rate stands at 18.75% as announced by the Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of Nigeria in July 2023.
Citizens are waiting to see how the Nigerian government will intervene to address this downward economic trajectory, which has occasioned significant adverse impact on the cost and standard of living in the country.