Senate President Godswill Akpabio has made the stunning admission that he has never seen the National Assembly’s budget despite presiding over the Senate, revealing what he described as a closed financial management system that effectively excludes the Senate President from legislative spending decisions.
Nigeria’s Senate President does not know what is in the National Assembly’s budget. He said so himself.
Godswill Akpabio dropped one of the most extraordinary admissions heard on the Senate floor in recent memory on Thursday, telling his colleagues during plenary that despite presiding over the upper legislative chamber, he has never personally seen the National Assembly’s budget, according to TheCable.
“Personally I’ve never seen the budget of the national assembly,” Akpabio said plainly.
The confession came during debate on a motion by Senator Sunday Karimi of Kogi West seeking to review the legislature’s internal procurement process and establish an internal tenders board — a motion that was ultimately stepped down. The motion arrived less than 24 hours after Akpabio himself had threatened legal action against the contractor responsible for renovating the National Assembly chambers, where persistent microphone and electronic voting faults have forced both chambers into manual voting on key constitutional amendments — despite ₦37 billion spent on the renovation, as previously reported by TheCable.
Akpabio then turned to Senator Aminu Tambuwal — former Speaker of the House of Representatives — asking whether the House leadership had budget visibility.
“You were a speaker… maybe in the house of representatives, they show you?” Akpabio asked.
“Yes,” Tambuwal replied.
“You see. That’s the point. So, the fault lies here in the senate,” Akpabio responded.
He described the financial management structure as deliberately opaque. “The way I do things, not that I’m nonchalant, it’s as if they make it a closed thing, and that the senate president doesn’t have anything to do with the management’s funds and all that,” he said.
Akpabio called for both chambers to jointly examine budget allocations before debating procurement reforms, and questioned whether such matters should be aired publicly before internal housekeeping was completed.
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