. Senate alarmed at poor 2024 budget performance
. El-Rufai: President has been rejected by Nigerians
By Peter Salami
Former Governor of Bayelsa State, Senator Seriake Dickson has alleged that government business has been grounded in Nigeria because the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration is busy playing 2027 reelection politics.
Dickson spoke just as the Senate expressed strong dissatisfaction with the Year 2024 budget performance, and extended its implementation to December 31, 2025.
The Senate had raised alarm over the 2024 budget, with senators openly complaining about how poorly it has been implemented.
Sen. Yahaya Abdullahi (APC-Kebbi) raised concerns that “people had committed their resources and conducted government work but that up till now, they had not been paid.
“So I think we need to know what is really happening. They are saying that there is a cash flow problem or whatever.
“Mr President, I think the leadership of the National Assembly should take it upon itself to meet the President and express our own concern about what is happening regarding implementation of the budget,” he said.
Also, Sen. Abdul Ningi (PDP-Bauchi) said: “What you ought to hear from the Committee Chairman on Appropriation is whether or not we are experiencing a shortage of revenues; whether or not there is no money in this country to pay off these implemented projects,” he said.
But in Dickson’s view, the present government under the leadership of President Bola Tinubu is busy with politics, receiving defectors across the country ahead of the 2027 general elections, and has abandoned its duties of governance.
Before Dickson’s remarks at the Senate, former Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai, had said Tinubu is living on borrowed time, as most Nigerians have disapproved of his re-election in 2027.
Dickson said, “Clearly, nobody is satisfied with the situation we find ourselves in. Mr. President, I came in this morning to have a conversation with the chairman of appropriations and the chairman of finance, and if possible, to discuss this on the floor. I did not know this matter had been slated for hearing.
“This is because we have all been inundated with complaints all over. The government has been grounded; that’s what it means. Contractors who have done their jobs and committed their resources cannot be paid. The benefit of the budget we all took time to work on and passed has not gotten to the people, and guess what? We are talking about the capital component.
“Maybe there is too much preoccupation with politics and 2027. Maybe there is too much concentration on receiving defectors across the country.
“The business of the Nigerian people to which we were all elected, all of us and the President of the Federal Republic, is not moving forward,” he complained.
Reports indicate that many contractors handling federal government ministries, departments, and agencies’ projects have not been paid since October 2024.
As a result, the House of Representatives on May 8 summoned the Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Yemi Cardoso, Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun; Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Atiku Bagudu, and other top government officials over the development.
The situation has become so bad that several contracting firms have let go of over 50 percent of their workforce in the last two months because they cannot afford to pay their salaries.
On Monday night, former Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai, declared that President Tinubu “is gone.” He said Tinubu has a 91 percent disapproval rating in the North and Southeast.
He made this claim in an interview on Arise Television’s Prime Time programme.
The Social Democratic Party, SDP, chieftain pointed out that in the last two years, Tinubu has performed miserably in the areas of security, economy, and trade.
He said: “We have to ask the people to make up their minds, do you like what is happening? This is just two years. If your life has gotten better since Tinubu was sworn in on May 29, 2023, fine, but if not, why not give some other people a chance?
“We have done some polling in many parts of the country, particularly in the southeast and the north. President Tinubu has a 91% disapproval rating, even in Lagos, he has a 78% disapproval rating.
“In the Southwest, he is doing a bit better. Ondo and Ekiti, he is doing better with a 78 percent disapproval rating, but there is nowhere he is doing better than 50%, even in the Southwest.
“The guy is gone; he has performed miserably. The economy has stopped, the insecurity architecture has failed, there are no clear trade and investment policies, and everything is going wrong.
“They are raising lots of revenues, but we don’t know where the revenues are going because there are no results.”