Senator Ali Ndume said he recently visited Ghana and Niger as part of a search for a foreign country he would escape to, in a situation the insecurity in Nigeria goes out of hand.
Ndume, who currently represents Borno South in the Senate, made this revelation on Thursday, during submissions by the Chairman of the National Salaries, Income and Wages Commission, Mr Ekpo Nta while defending his agency’s 2021 budget before the Senate Committee on Establishment.
The senator from Borno State said, “Personally, I’m already thinking of where to run to if the avoidable crisis is not averted. I visited Ghana and Niger recently in this regard.”
Ndume also decried the rising recurrent expenditure in the annual national budget of the Federal Government.
According to the senator, the NSIWC boss ought to have known the total wage bill of the Federal Government workers.
He noted that such information would have assisted the legislature to arrest the dangerous trend of increases in the yearly recurrent expenditure component of the budget.
Ndume said it was unjustifiable that wages and salaries continue to increase when there were no new recruitments and when workers constantly retire on yearly basis.
He said, “Honestly speaking, a time bomb is ticking out there with this policy because of the doors shut out against millions of youths seeking employment through the embargo.
“Making it worrisome is the fact that despite the policy, since 2018 till now, recurrent expenditure components of yearly budget have been increasing.
“In 2018, it was N3.5trn; N4trn in 2019; N4.5trn in 2020; N5.6trn in 2021and N6.83trn in the projected N16.39trn in the 2022 budget.
“It is bad for recurrent expenditure to be increasing on yearly basis without an increase in the number of workforce through required recruitments.
“The embargo is turning into a time bomb that can explode at any time as witnessed in some countries in the recent past.”