Mrs. Ireti Kingibe, (LP, FCT), the senator representing Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, has expressed sadness at being sidelined in Senate Committee issues that affect her constituency.
During the Senate’s Tuesday Plenary session focused on the 2024 ₦98.5 billion FCT Supplemental budget, Mrs. Kingibe expressed her sadness at being excluded from Senate Committee issues that directly affect her constituency.
Speaking under Orders 10 and 11, Kingibe asserts that she ought to be recognized as the highest elected office holder in the FCT, representing over four million people, and be part in important conversations about the capital territory, especially those pertaining to fiscal matters.
“Mr. President,” she complained, “I am not carried along in matters pertaining to the territory, including budget discussions.”
The Senate is considering a supplementary budget presented by President Bola Tinubu for Abuja, seeking an additional spending bill of ₦98.5 billion in addition to the ₦1.2 Trillion already appropriated in the 2024 fiscal year budget.
However, Senate President GodsWill Akpabio stopped Kingibe and asked her to bring her concern instead as a motion.
The Senate has agreed to hear her motion in tomorrow’s session.
Minister Snubs Senator’s “Friendship”
The FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, who represents the President, has repeatedly said he is not prepared to carry along the female senator or be her friend. “I don’t want to be your friend. Is it by force to be anybody’s friend?” the minister once asked in relation to his relationship with Mrs. Kingibe.
Wike is often spotted with the defeated former senator of the FCT, Mr. Philip Aduda, a fellow party pal with Wike in the People’s Democratic Party, at public and private engagements.
Nigerians were stunned when the little-known Kingibe of the Labour Party defeated Senator Adudua in the 2023 election, riding mostly on the Obidient Wave that swept through Abuja and parts of the northern-central region of Nigeria.
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