Senate’s Budget Defence of Commotion and Zero Releases

If the National Assembly’s budget defence week was meant to signal fiscal scrutiny and accountability, it instead exposed a deeper crisis; zero releases, inter-committee clashes, and tempers stretched thin across hearing rooms.

From steel to works and finance, lawmakers sparred not just with ministers, but among themselves, as most Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) disclosed a troubling pattern: allocations on paper, but little or no cash backing.

The week’s most dramatic moment unfolded during the Senate Committee session with the Ministry of Steel Development, when Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan (PDP, Kogi Central) clashed openly with the committee chairman, Senator Patrick Ndubueze.

After nearly four hours of deliberation, the chairman moved to close proceedings. Akpoti-Uduaghan, however, insisted she still had critical questions to ask.

As Ndubueze attempted to bring down the gavel, she interjected: “No, please, do not interrupt. I still have something to say, and I think you should respect me enough. Please don’t do that.”

Ignoring her, the chairman struck the gavel and replied, “No, you have spoken enough and I have respected you enough.”

“Mr. Chairman, thank you. Then that’s fine,” she responded, before raising her voice further. “I think you have disrespected me more than enough. No, no, no. You can’t do this to me. You can’t. You spoke enough, allow me to speak. I have something very vital to interface with the minister.

“And it doesn’t matter if I’ve spoken once or twice. This is an interactive session. And you agree that we have not met wit the minister enough. Only God knows where next we are going to meet with him as a committee.”

She later stormed out of the hearing room.

At the heart of her anger was the perennial issue of Ajaokuta Steel Company. Representing the senatorial district that hosts the long-stalled project, Akpoti-Uduaghan repeatedly questioned the Ministry’s transparency over Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) signed with private partners.

“I did request for a copy of the MOU because I needed to be certain that due diligence was conducted,” she said. “But since I was not furnished with the MOU, I had to rely on third-party conversations.”

According to her, the structure of the agreement was unclear. “If TPE was to bring the technical expertise, that means ProForce should have brought the finance. Please explain this to me,” she demanded.

She accused the ministry of sidelining her despite her dual responsibility as lawmaker and host community representative.

“I am the senator representing Kogi Central, and since I got into the Senate, we’ve just met only three times. We only seem to meet at budget presentations,” she lamented.

“You have prepared this fantastic speech… we just meet, we talk to the media, and then every day we fold our arms and do nothing. Three years into you being a minister, we are still trying to go back and forth on what is the best model to move Ajaokuta. Isn’t that funny?”

The steel session was not an isolated case.

At the joint budget defence between the National Assembly Committees on Works and the Ministry of Works, tempers also flared; this time between Senator Adams Oshiomhole and Minister of Works, David Umahi, over the N15 trillion Lagos-Calabar coastal highway project.

As Oshiomhole pressed on funding transparency and delays, Umahi bristled.

“Sir, are you judging or asking me questions?” Umahi asked.

“You are not entitled to interrupt me,” Oshiomhole shot back.

A visibly furious Umahi responded, “You can’t use foul language on me. I’m a distinguished Nigerian. You cannot speak to me in that manner.”

Some senators sided openly with Oshiomhole.

One House of Reps member from Edo state wuickly sided with Oshiomole telling the minister, “Mind your language. You were in this senate for how long? Two months. Two-month senator.”

The exchange underscored growing unease over funding models for mega projects. Oshiomhole commended President Bola Tinubu for terminating the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited’s tax credit model for road funding, describing it as “very difficult to monitor transparency.”

Umahi, while defending private sector funding as progressive, blamed delays on the finance ministry’s failure to release allocated funds.

He assured lawmakers that the president was unaware of the bottlenecks.

Even within the committee, decorum buckled.

In a separate confrontation during the same Works session, Deputy Senate Whip Peter Nwaebonyi clashed with Rufai Hanga, who was presiding in the absence of the substantive chairman.

When Hanga asked him to conclude his remarks, Nwaebonyi protested, “You cannot stop me from speaking after allowing Senator Adams Oshiomhole to talk for 15 solid minutes.

“I’ve barely spent about five minutes and you are telling me to round up. I won’t.

“And for your information, as ranking presiding officer, I can take over proceedings of this session from you.”

Hanga struck the gavel and ordered him to yield the floor.

“I’m a ranking Senator of the ruling party that cannot be ruled against by a minority senator,” Nwaebonyi declared.

Hanga fired back, “The votes that brought me to the Senate in June 2023 were ten times higher than what you got from your Ebonyi North Senatorial District.”

It took interventions from senior lawmakers, including Ali Ndume and Adamu Aliero, to restore calm.

On Thursday, in a rare moment of comic relief amid the week’s high-wire tension, Akpoti-Uduaghan briefly stepped out of a finance session and neatly pasted a handwritten note on her chair: “Stay clear from my sit, I am coming back.”

In a complex where lawmakers constantly shuffle between concurrent committee meetings, marking attendance here, asking questions there, seats are prime real estate. Her improvised “reservation system” drew chuckles from colleagues and offered a lighthearted snapshot of just how crowded, competitive, and combustible the budget defence marathon had become.

Yet beyond the theatre of personality clashes lay a more troubling pattern: zero releases.

Across committee rooms, heads of MDAs disclosed that their 2025 budgets had either not been released at all or had seen negligible cash backing despite being captured in the Appropriation Act.

In several instances, Ministries and agencies admitted they had operated largely on internally generated revenue or carried-over commitments.

Some of the Ministries that lamented includes, Ministry of Trade, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Company (NBET), The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Defence, Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN).

So far, all the agencies that have appeared before the Senate have had the same complaints.

Some could not implement capital projects because funds had not been cash-backed. Others had personnel budgets approved but no operational releases.

The frustration was evident. For lawmakers, the exercise of budget defence increasingly felt ritualistic, agencies presenting ambitious proposals while simultaneously confessing that previous allocations never materialised.

This echoed the tensions in the Finance Committee, where senators had queried agencies that survived entire fiscal cycles on negligible disbursements.

The contradiction was stark: trillions appropriated at the federal level, yet MDAs reporting zero releases.

Within the National Assembly complex itself, the chaos was both logistical and symbolic.

With multiple committees sitting simultaneously, senators moved between rooms to mark attendance, ask questions of interest, and return to preferred sessions. Space constraints meant seats were frequently vacated and reoccupied.

The cumulative effect was a legislature under pressure, grappling with fiscal opacity, executive delays, political rivalry and internal hierarchy battles.

Budget defence, ideally a sober exercise in accountability, instead exposed systemic weaknesses: appropriations without releases, oversight without enforcement, and projects announced without funding clarity.

Especially when the Economic team comprising of Wale Edun, Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Doris Uzoka-Anite, the Minister of Finance; Olayemi Cardoso, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Atiku Bagudu, Minister of Budget and Economic Planning alongside the Zacch Adedeji, the Executive Chairman of Nigeria Revenue Service has consistently stated that Nigeria’s revenue was on the rise, as well as being in charge of Forex.

As ministers blamed finance bottlenecks and lawmakers traded accusations of disrespect, one question lingered across committee corridors: what is the value of passing budgets that are not funded?

For many MDAs, the answer appears grim. Without timely releases, plans stall, contracts hang in limbo, and capital projects remain on paper.

And for a Senate already navigating public skepticism over its priorities, the week of commotion has only sharpened scrutiny.