We are the CONSCIENCE OF YORUBA NATION GROUP an affiliate of Afenifere.

In regards to the recent instruction of our president of Nigeria, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to the state Governors to provide land for grazing to herders in attempt to curtail the incessant Farmer Herders Crisis that is ravaging the country. Members of COYN hereby reject this proposition of PBAT on this subject. Grazing zones as a proposal to combat the farmers herders crisis has proved ineffective in the middle belt of the country. Benue state banned open grazing and provided ranches yet the crisis in Benue has continued. In Plataeu State and Nasarawa, lands were donated by the President Buhari administration but this did not stop the continued Farmers -Herders clashes. Southern Kaduna is another example of cases of failure of the grazing reserves: they have the longest record since the 1960 grazing reserve act where the former Northern region let the herders lease land for grazing, the reserve land subsequently becoming disputed land, leading to further conflicts till today and continued killings in the region.

We are also dismayed that the President did not recommend any investigation into the offending herders who are interfering with agricultural practices in affected regions such as the South West of Nigeria. As the chief law enforcement officer of the country, we urge the president to look into farm security initiatives for farmers whose lives are endangered everyday by herders who are often armed and has been confrontational in their encounters with farmers, leading to their murdering of many farmers in cold blood. We propose that the president set up a committee to investigate the causes of the incessant farmers -herders crisis and why existing remedies in other regions of the country with adequate land mass for ranching has failed. Mandating State Governors to give land as grazing zone appears to be a repeat of same ineffective strategies that have plagued the country since 1960s.

We urge the State Governments of the Southwest to double their efforts in Animal husbandry to meet the demands of the citizens.

COYN continues to believe in the unity of Nigeria under a federal system based on equity and fairness.

We also believe in the capacity of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to solve the problems bedevilling Nigeria.

Otunba Adekolejo Kole Omololu. 
Conveiner.

 A civic organisation focused on the Nigerian budget and public data, BudgIT, has thrown its weight behind suspended Senator Abdul Ningi on a N3.7 trillion gap in the 2024 budget presented to the National Assembly.

 The Director and co-founder of BudgIT, Seun Onigbinde, made this known during an interview with Channels Television on Wednesday, stressing that Ningi was right if he posited that there was no detailed allocation for N3.7 trillion in the 2024 budget. 

Ningi, representing Bauchi Central senatorial district was suspended on Tuesday by the Senate, over the allegations that two versions of the 2024 budget were passed at the National Assembly. The senator said he stood by his story and also said there was nowhere he said two versions of the budget were being implemented.

The senator from Bauchi, who was also the Chairman of the Northern Senators Forum (NSF), alleged that the budget was padded by N3.7 trillion and that the North has been neglected under the administration of President Bola Tinubu. On the floor of the Senate, the Chairman Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Olamilekan Adeola (APC, Ogun West) on Tuesday moved a motion on breach of privilege and after heated debate by senators, Ningi was suspended for three months.

 ‘Ningi was right’

But reacting yesterday, the BudgIT Director, Onigbinde, stressed that Ningi was right for positing that there was no detailed allocation for N3.7 trillion in the 2024 budget.

 Onigbinde said the allocations of the National Assembly, National Judicial Council (NJC), Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) and others do not carry a detailed breakdown. 

He added that the people have the right to know how the funds earmarked for the aforementioned agencies were being spent.

“Around N2 trillion of the budget presented by the president is the government-owned enterprises budget. So, if Senator Ningi says there is a N25 trillion budget, yes, that is the MDA’s budget. It’s different from the government-owned enterprises budget which was now added. 

“It is factual that he said that, but it doesn’t mean that we are running two concurrent budgets. There is a different conversation that those projects should be detailed. TETFUND should not just get an allocation. 

“What are you spending the money on? INEC is collecting a huge chunk of funds but there are no public details about what the funds are used for, the same thing with NJC, even the National Assembly. “In the current budget, the National Assembly gave a very broad summary of its allocations but there are no detailed allocations on a granular level that everybody can interrogate.

 “These are transparency issues and if you put all these together, that is around N3.5 trillion to N3.7 trillion. So, if that is what he (Ningi) wants to interrogate, there are components of the budget where there is no breakdown. That is very factual. 

“But the National Assembly needs to push back. We need a breakdown. What is NJC spending money on? We give more money to the NJC and say take it arbitrarily. What are they spending that money on? There should be a detailed breakdown to the public. On that point, Senator Ningi is right but to look as if we are running parallel budgets, that is not right.” He said. Contacted by Daily Trust yesterday to shed more light on their finding, Onigbinde said “Ningi’s allegation of budget padding was partly true. “From my fact-checking of Ningi’s statement, we found some parts to be untrue, and we found some parts to be true.

“The only part that we found to be true is that some of the items that were statutory transfers and Government Owned Enterprises (GOEs) do not have a breakdown. “The bigger picture here is about insertion into the budget. Around 7,474 projects worth N2.2 trillion were added to the budget. I think that’s where the bigger problem is.”

But efforts to get the Senate spokesman, Yemi Adaramodu, to comment on the latest development proved abortive, as he neither answered his phone calls nor responded to an SMS sent to him. Senator Adaramodu had explained on Tuesday that the N3.7 trillion alleged to have not been traceable to any project or location was for agencies of government “on first line charge.”

 The Senate Spokesman said, “They include the Public Complaints Commission, INEC, UBEC, TETFUND, and many others. So, the money was not padded. They are allocations of agencies of government that have to take first line charge.”

However, Dataphyte, a research and data analytics organisation, said there was no evidence of padding in the 2024 budget. 

 “What we can confirm is that the 2024 Appropriation Act approved an aggregate expenditure of 28.78 trillion naira, and the figures add up,” Mr Oluseyi Olufemi, the Insight Lead, Dataphyte, told Daily Trust yesterday.

We stand by Ningi – Bauchi gov 

Meanwhile, Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State has declared that the state government is behind Senator Ningi.

 Speaking during the state’s cabinet meeting at the Government House in Bauchi yesterday, Mohammed said, “Yesterday (Tuesday), I was very sad the Senate suspended one of our best from Bauchi for saying the truth, for standing up to be the beacon of the truth. “Equally I don’t know what we will do but we will discuss privately to see what we can do to support him because I support whatever he is doing and that is our best position especially if what he is saying is the truth.” The governor, however, called on all relevant authorities to thoroughly investigate the matter rather than suspending the senator.

PDP asks Akpabio to step aside

 The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has asked Senate President Godswill Akpabio to immediately step aside and allow an independent investigation into the “allegation that a staggering N3.7 trillion was discreetly inserted into the 2024 budget for alleged non-existent projects.”

 PDP also demanded that Senator Akpabio immediately report to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over the pending case of “alleged looting of N108 billion belonging to the people of Akwa Ibom State under his watch as governor”.

Debo Ologunagba, National Publicity Secretary of the party, in a statement, said the Senate president should also speak to Nigerians on the “reported N86 billion contract scam in the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) during his tenure as the minister of Niger Delta Affairs.”

Ologunagba said, “We ask, why the APC leadership in the Senate not referred the matter to the appropriate Senate standing committee for an open investigation in line with the extant rules of the Senate? What is the APC Senate leadership afraid of and what is it hiding from Nigerians?

 “It is even more absurd that instead of recusing himself, the Senate president sat as a judge in the matter; a situation that can bring the institution of the Senate to further public disrepute.”

Suspension didn’t address budget padding allegation – Obi 

The presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in last year’s election, Mr Peter Obi has said that the suspension of Senator Abdul Ningi by the Senate has not addressed vital issues emanating from his allegation of the 2024 budget padding. Obi, in a post on his X handle yesterday, asked senators to disclose to Nigerians the exact amounts allocated to them for constituency projects for appropriate monitoring of implementation by the public. “And if indeed the report from BudgIT is true, that there is about N3.7trn without any detailed project allocations, I strongly urge the Senate to do more detailed work of channelling these funds into the critical areas of development – education, health and pulling people out of poverty, which will in turn, minimise the criminality we are facing today.”

Ningi’s suspension attack on freedom of expression – CISLAC 

The Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC)/Transparency International in Nigeria (TI-Nigeria) also queried the “undemocratic action and questionable decision by the leadership of the Senate to suspend Ningi over the 2024 budget padding controversy.”

The Executive Director of CISLAC/TI-Nigeria, Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, said on Wednesday in Abuja that it is unacceptable that the suspension was initiated against Ningi for expressing his constitutionally guaranteed concerns and observations on the 2024 budget at this critical moment when the nation is deeply soaked in socio-economic and financial crisis. 

He said that the unjust suspension of a senator who represents an entire senatorial district is similar to a public demonstration of an unguarded culture of silencing, insensitivity, disrespect and marginalisation of the people and dictatorship. Also, Comrade Ibrahim M. Zikirullahi, Executive Director, Resource Centre for Human Rights and Civic Education (CHRICED), demanded for forensic audit of allocation for constituency projects. He also demanded Senator Abdul Ningi’s immediate reinstatement.

“The Senate leadership made major attempts to undercut Senator Ningi’s charges and swiftly suspended him without conducting a thorough inquiry to check the veracity of his claims. He commended Senators Ningi and Jarigbe for their courage in speaking out against corruption and theft of public resources in the Nigerian Senate.

“Furthermore, we’ve discovered that members in both the Senate and the House of Representatives have developed new methods to sneak fake projects into the budget, making it impossible to monitor.

“This has occurred since the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) collaborated with selected Civil Society Organizations, including CHRICED, to monitor constituency projects across the country, exposing the fraudulent practices of several federal and state legislators.

“One such strategy adopted by them is to insert useless and frivolous empowerment initiatives that are virtually hard to track down and do not fulfil the constituents’ concerns. We saw in the 2024 budget that a lot of projects with billions of Naira earmarked to them had no locations or specifics,” he said. 

 [DailyTrust]

The Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Mele Kyari, has said the firm recorded 9,000 infractions on oil pipelines in one year.

Kyari stated this yesterday when the House of Representatives Special Committee on Oil Theft visited the NNPCL headquarters in Abuja on oversight functions.

According to him, from 2022 till date, the NNPCL had deactivated 6,465 illegal refineries. It has also removed 4,876 of the 5,570 illegal connections to pipelines.

He added: “Some of the infractions we see are unbelievable. We are not able to deal with it. When you remove one connection, the next day in the same location, someone will replace it.

“It is obvious that crude oil theft is almost an end-to-end issue in Nigeria; it is very obvious that everyone is involved. In most of these locations, they are less than a 100 meters from the settlement. Some are even less than a 100 meters from the local government headquarters.”

Kyari said the key issue was insecurity, and that NNPCL moved to curtail pipeline vandalism by incorporating all security agencies into a single platform, including private security.

According to him, no country surrenders the protection of such critical assets, which are the source of income, to non-state actors.

The Nigeria Labour Congress, on Wednesday, expressed anger over the failure of about 90 per cent of states (over 30 states) in paying the wage award as agreed by the Federal Government and the organised Labour.

The NLC said this as pensioners who retired from the Federal Civil Service threatened to embark on a nationwide protest following the failure of the government to pay their wage award.

Labour leaders in Sokoto, Kano, Benue, and Bayelsa states told The PUNCH on Wednesday that their state governments had no paid  the wage award, while Gombe, Ogun, and Osun were paying N15,000 or N10,000.

The NLC Assistant General Secretary, NLC, Chris Onyeka, in an interview with The PUNCH on Wednesday, said state governors jettisoned negotiations, as they unilaterally gave workers N10,000 without any negotiation.

The payment of wage award to workers was one of the agreements between the organised labour and the Federal Government as one of the ways to mitigate the effect of the removal of subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit, popularly known as petrol.

In 2023, the NLC and Trade Union Congress entered into an agreement with the Federal Government where the latter agreed to pay a N35,000 wage award to workers for six months, as well as review the minimum wage in 2024.

On Tuesday, President Bola Tinubu in Niger State appealed to state governors to continue to pay workers in their various states the wage award till negotiations on a new minimum wage were concluded.

But speaking with one of our correspondents on Wednesday, the Assistant General Secretary, NLC lamented that about 90 per cent of states, representing over 30 states, were not paying the wage award to their workers.

He “About 90 per cent of the states have not paid wage awards. Some states I know decided to give workers N10,000 but the wage award is not decided alone.

“There is a process for it. There must be a negotiation with the workers. Wage award is not a dash out or a charity. The process must be inclusive,” Onyeka stated.

Gombe pays N10,000

But the General Secretary of the NLC in Gombe State, Ibrahim Fika, said so far, workers had received N10,000, as the wage award had yet to be implemented by the state government.

Fika said, “Nothing yet. We have only been paid N10,000 per month. We have not received the wage award as directed by the President. We are still hopeful that workers will be duly paid the agreed amount at the right time to reduce the hardship.”

The NLC leaders in both Sokoto and Kebbi states said workers in the two states had yet to receive any wage award from their respective state governments.

Speaking in separate interviews, the union leaders said they had commenced the process of negotiation for the wage award with the representatives of their governments.

The Chairman, NLC, Sokoto State, Abdullahi Jungle, said the state government would soon announce the wage award to its workers.

“We are still negotiating with the government and I am sure that very soon the state government and labour leaders will agree on how much to be paid to workers,” he said.

His counterpart from Kebbi State, Murtala Usman, said, “Yes, we are still negotiating and the outcome will soon be made public.”

Meanwhile, a senior aide to the governor of Sokoto State, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the state government had been adopting different measures to cushion the effect of the current economic hardship on its workers.

He said, “Look at the announcement made by the governor yesterday on the payment of half salary to all categories of workers including pensioners in the state to assist them in this month of Ramadan.

“This is apart from so many other measures being made available to workers including palliatives. I am sure the wage award will be addressed soon as usual.”

‘Bayelsa not paying’

In Bayelsa State, the state chapter of NLC said the state government had not been paying its workers the wage award.

The state NLC Secretary, John Angese, who stated this, said the state government had not given the organised labour a definite response on the issue of wage award.

He said, “No, the state government is not paying workers the wage award. The government has not given us any definite answer on that matter.

“The wage award is N35,000. The Federal Government paid only two months (to its workers) and stopped, now they are about to continue. That stoppage couldn’t allow us to make any serious case (with the state government) since the national government also defaulted.”

Also speaking, the Chairman of the Trade Union Congress, Ekiti State, Sola Adigun, said the hike in the prices of goods and services had made the wage award insignificant, hence the need for immediate conclusion of negotiation and implementation of a new living wage for workers.

Adigun said though the Ekiti State Government had since December last year been implementing the wage award for workers, “what is being implemented is not the same amount that the Federal Government expected.

“Here in Ekiti, all public servants at the states and Local Governments are given N15,000 monthly after the payment of salary. We have been paid for three months now, December, January, and February. Pensioners are being paid N10,000 monthly apart from their pensions.’’

When contacted, Osun State TUC Chairman, Bimbo Fasasi, said the state government started paying the wage award to workers and retirees in December 2023.

Fasasi, who added that the government had paid up to February, said, “Osun is paying N15,000 for active workers and N10,000 for retirees.

“It commenced payment last December 2023 and has paid up to February 2024. By March ending we are expecting the March wage award to come.”

The Kano State Government has yet to fulfill its promise on the payment of the N20,000 wage award it agreed to pay the state and Local Government workers for six months beginning from December 2023.

Similarly, the government has also yet to commence the payment of the N15,000 wage award it promised pensioners for three months from December 2023.

The Chairman of the NLC, Kabiru Inuwa, said this in a telephone interview with The PUNCH on Wednesday.

He said, “We agreed on N20,000 but the government has yet to begin the payment.”

According to him, the wage award was aimed at minimising the hardship being experienced by workers brought about by the fuel subsidy removal in the country but was not forthcoming in Kano State.

Efforts to get the state Commissioner of Information, Baba Dantiye, failed as his phone was switched off. He was said to be in the State Executive Council meeting.

A WhatsApp message sent to him was not replied as of the time of filing this report.

Labour in Benue State threatened to write to the national secretariat about the non-response of the state government to the wage award demand.

The state NLC Chairman, Terungwa Igbe, said the union had written to the state government about their desire to meet with the government.

He said, “We have not heard of anything from the state government despite the letter we wrote to them to have a meeting with them.”

Asked what would be the next line of action, Igbe said, “We are going to write to our national secretariat to inform it of the development.”

Meanwhile, the state government through the Commissioner for Finance and Budget Planning, Michael Oglegba, said the government would soon meet the labour union concerning the wage award.

The Chairman, TUC, Ogun State, Akeem Lasisi, said the state government had since July commenced the payment of N10,000 palliatives to the state workers.

“We were given 40 per cent of the basic salary starting from September 2023; N10,000 palliatives started in July 2023, while we also got Christmas bonus in December, ranging from N20,000 from Level 01 to N100,000 for level 15-17.”

Pensioners threaten protest

Meanwhile, pensioners who retired from the Federal Civil Service threatened a nationwide protest following the failure of the Federal Government to pay their wage awards.

The pensioners under the aegis of Federal Civil Service Pensioners, an affiliate of the National Union of Pensioners, expressed dismay at the failure of the Tinubu-led administration to pay the wage awards despite the untold hardship currently being faced by Nigerians.

While addressing selected members of the press in Abuja on Wednesday, the President of the Federal Civil Service Pensioners, Sunday Omezi, said pensioners were going through excruciating pains and agony.

“We feel constrained to bring to the knowledge of the world through this medium, the excruciating pains and agony we have been subjected over the years by the same government we served vigorously and diligently with our youthful energy without blemish only to be abused, dehumanised, marginalised and neglected with reckless abandon, after sapping our energy and leaving us dejected and consigned to rot and death,” he said.

Speaking on the unpaid wage award, Omezi said, “It is pathetic and disappointing to bring to the fore, the non-payment of the N25,000 wage award promised pensioners by the government.

“It is rather distasteful that up till date, no single payment has been made to pensioners. We are hereby demanding immediate payment of the award, because it is so embarrassing for such a promise to be left unfulfilled.”

Omezi also noted that pensioners have been crying profusely the tears of pain over the years through several official representations to the government.

“Our telling has been deliberately ignored, hence we are left with no option, but to cry out louder to the world to be informed of the pathetic condition we have been made to suffer by the same system that is expected to protest us.”

When asked whether the union would protest, Omezi said, “We are hoping it won’t get to that. That is the major reason we have this press briefing. However, if nothing is done, we may have to embark on a protest.’’

But the Niger State Governor Mohammed Bago has promised to start paying the State’s workers wage award beginning from March 2024.

The governor’s promise was the outcome of a round table negotiation with the leadership of the State chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress NLC, in Minna.

Chairman of the Niger State NLC, Idrees Lafene, spoke with The PUNCH in a telephone chat on Wednesday in which he said President Bola Tinubu’s comment on wage award during his visit to the State was important to the State’s Labour Union.

He expressed confidence that the Niger State Governor would fulfill his promise to start paying the wage award from March 2024.

“I like what the president said, especially when he said governor’s should give wage award. That is the only thing hat remains for our Governor. If he is able to give wage award, he’ll be one of the best governors,” Lafene said.

Asked if the governor has started paying wage award, the NLC chairman said, “ Our agreement with the governor is this March, he said end of March, that is when he will start paying the wage award. He said he will pay N20,000”.

[Punch]