BREAKING: Senate suspends 2025 budget defense for Auditor General’s office just 24 hours before deadline
In a surprising turn of events on Tuesday, January 21, the Nigerian Senate suspended the 2025 budget defense for the Office of the Auditor General for the Federation (OAGF), just 24 hours before the deadline. This could lead to zero allocation for the office, as the Senate had set Wednesday, January 22, 2025, as the final day for all budget defenses.
Senator Ahmed Wadada, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Accounts, asked the Auditor General, S.K. Chira, and his team to leave after they were unprepared and unable to answer questions about the 2024 budget performance. The situation became tense when it was discovered that the budget documents the Auditor General was using were different from the ones provided to Committee members.
Despite the confusion, Senator Wadada reassured the public, stating, “It is left for the Auditor General for the Federation to go get prepared and return, even in two hours now that he has been told that Wednesday is the deadline.”
He added, “He is the Auditor General auditing government agencies, and the Senate Public Accounts Committee is statutorily empowered to audit his office.”
With the clock ticking, the fate of the OAGF’s 2025 budget now rests on the Auditor General’s ability to return with the necessary preparations before the fast-approaching deadline.
