Nigerian Senators’ diatribe and their corrupt national budget opprobrium
By Nura Jibo
Senator Abdul Ningi remains a hero of Nigeria’s democracy. His revelations, as the senator from Edo North implied, will haunt their reputation, causing them to receive years of contempt and opprobrium from the Nigerian people.
No one takes any of the current Nigerian senators seriously.
The entire country and world leaders view their tongue-lashing as an overt confession to the national budget’s animadversion. What irony!
Indeed, the mentality of Nigerian politicians, both young and old, is the same. To enter politics, contest, “win” either fairly or by crooked means, and serve the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th terms.
This could be easily spotted in the Senate chamber. It is full of geriatrics who served eight years as governors in their respective states and have now become senators to take cover in the Senate and hide their political obloquy.
In the past two days, Nigerians have been left in no doubt that the Nigerian senators, including their Senate President, are already in a state of disgrace resulting from public opprobrium. And this is quite understandable.
There is no way a Nigerian citizen could trust any senator with his hard-earned electoral vote. Unless the senator steals it by fabricating figures the way they surreptitiously did in the 2023 national budget, where some of them were allocated ₦500 million as publicly confessed by one of their own!
For one of their own to call all of them culpable, or better yet, culprits, is certainly an obloquy and political hara-kiri—an indelible series of political somersaults.
What Senator Ningi presented was a testament to the fact that the entire Senate is now embroiled in a disturbing saga of corruption and self-incrimination, demonstrating a reckless disregard and disrespect for the public good.
Indeed, this Senate’s attitude is certainly an intentional breach of decorum that exposes them to the vagueness, vagaries, verbosity, and waffle of their statutory unconscionability!
May Allah SWT save Nigeria and its people from this kind of Senate’s malicious misrepresentation(s) of the people under the tutelage of budget padding.