Chairman of the Northern Senators Forum, Abdul Ningi, has alleged that the budget being executed by the Federal Government at the moment is not what the National Assembly passed.

In an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), yesterday, Ningi said: “The new things we have discovered in the budget were not known to us. We haven’t seen them in the budget that was debated and considered on the floor of the National Assembly.

“For example, it was said that there was a budget of N28 trillion but what was passed was N25 trillion. So, there is N3 trillion on top. Where are they? Where is it going? So, we need to know this.”

The lawmaker further said: “There are a lot of things. We are coming up with a report and we will show the President himself and ask him if he is aware or not.

“This is what we intended to do. We are to meet the President. We will talk to him about the Mambilla power project, Ajaokuta and the River Niger dredging. We will talk to him about Niger Republic. Recently, they said they will construct a dam; this is not good for us.”

On the resolve of the northern senators to meet Tinubu, Ningi said: “This is true. For the past three months, we have engaged consultants to review the budget for us. We have some experts that are working on it line by line. We have seen the huge damage that was done, not only to the North but also the entire country in that budget. We are supposed to sit with the Senate President to inform him about what we have observed.

“We want to show him what we have seen in the budget that is not acceptable. We will not accept them and we don’t want the country to continue spending money on those things. Apart from what the National Assembly did on the floor, there was another budget that was done underground, which we didn’t know.”

On the performance of the present administration, Ningi lamented that things were getting worse compared to when President Bola Ahmed Tinubu took over the leadership of the country.

“People are going through a lot of difficulties. We live in villages. We go there to interact with them and they are lamenting seriously. They have nowhere to go, so they have no one to express their grievances to than us.

“I think Bola Ahmed Tinubu didn’t even understand this country and he didn’t understand the difficulties of ruling a country like Nigeria. Probably, he has his thinking of what governance is, but I don’t blame him so much because when he was campaigning for the seat, there was no agreement or promise between him and the people. People were just blinded and voted for him because he supported former president Muhammadu Buhari when he was contesting. Some even voted for him because he is a Muslim,” he stressed.

He also alleged that the people of northern Nigeria were not getting benefits from the Tinubu administration despite their huge roles they played in his election.

“But the most painful thing is that northerners stood for him and did all they could to bring him to power. Unfortunately, there was no agreement between them and the president on what should be done for the North and northerners, especially taking into consideration the important and significant projects the North has been yearning for and aspiring to get for a long time. For example, the Ajaokuta project, the Mambilla power project, the dredging of river Niger and other notable projects,” he noted.