Waheed Adebayo Adelabu, a ministerial nominee of President Bola Tinubu, appeared before the Senate on Tuesday for his screening.

Adelabu, an accountant by training and member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, gave a rundown of his professional and political life. He was on the ballot for the 2019 governorship election in Oyo State on the platform of the All Progressives Congress. In the governorship election held in March this year, he contested again, but on the platform of Accord Party.

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The accountant cum politician was the Deputy Governor, Operations Directorate, Central Bank of Nigeria, before his foray into politics. He disengaged from the apex bank on July 15, 2018.

Although his screening went on without much scrutiny, a few questions were thrown at him by some senators about the fiscal stability of Nigeria. Of interest was a question by Senator Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo of Gombe Central Senatorial District.

Dankwambo, a former Accountant General of the Federation, claimed that Nigeria was operating two budgets in violation of the law.

“Today, the federal government is running two budgets, one for 2022 to December 2023, one 2023 to December 2023. By our constitution, this is a violation of the constitution,” he said. He then asked the former CBN deputy governor to tell Nigerians if he would resolve the alleged conflicting budgets.

Responding quickly to the allegation by Dankwambo, Barau Jibrin, Deputy Senate President, said Dakwambo might be misleading the Senate. He said it was a resolution of the Senate to allow the implementation of the capital project component of the 2022 budget to continue because funds had already been released for that purpose. This, according to him, was what Dankwambo called “running two budgets”.

FIJ found that the National Assembly voted N5.47 trillion for capital expenditure in 2022 but the budget could not be fully implemented. This caused an extension of the budget’s validity from December 31, 2022, to March 31, 2023.

Again, a motion was championed by Ibrahim Gobir, the then Senate leader, for the amendment of the 2022 Appropriation Act and the 2022 Supplementary Act. He argued that an extension was important to enable a full implementation of the budget with the funds already provided to the relevant ministries, departments and agencies of the federal government. He further stated that the concerned projects had no provision in the 2023 budget, implying that they could be abandoned if the 2022 budget’s life was not extended.

The Senate then passed a resolution on March 28 to allow the MDAs utilise the funds for the capital projects nominated in the 2022 budget until June 2023. Meanwhile, the legislature had passed the 2023 budget. By law, the said budget will guide government expenditures throughout 2023.

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The motion led by Gobir only extended the capital expenditure segment of the 2022 budget to June. If, as alleged, the government still runs the 2022 budget based on the extensions earlier highlighted, it’s an illegality.