BEVERLY HILLS, JULY 21, (THEWILL) – The House of Representatives is on fire as Hon Abdulmumin Jibrin, just sacked Chairman, House Committee on Appropriation, has accused the Speaker, Hon Yakubu Dogara, and other principal officers of the house of being involved in the budget padding that rocked the 2016 budget.
THEWILL recalls that Jibrin, representing Kiru/Bebeji Federal Constituency, Kano State, was replaced as Chairman of the Committee by Dogara, on Wednesday, with speculations that Jibrin was responsible for the impasse and refusal of President Muhammadu Buhari to give his assent to the budget citing padding.
In response, Jibrin, displeased by the Speaker’s action, on Thursday, told the Speaker, Dogara, his deputy, Yussuff Lasun, the Minority Leader Leo Ogor and the Chief Whip, AlHassan Doguwa to resign for their alleged role in the budget padding threatening to let the cat out of the bag.
He declared that his refusal to support immunity for presiding officers of the house as well as the approval of N40 billion for principal officers out of N100 billion approved for members of the House for constituency project led to his removal.
“Speaker Dogara’s statement was a complete misrepresentation, false, mischievous, unfair and a calculated attempt to bring my name to disrepute, blackmail, silence and use me as a scape goat,” he lamented.
“The plan is to execute it just before the recess so that by the time we return I have been buried and the issue forgotten.
“Mr Speaker, this issue will never be swept under the carpet. We are closing for recess with it and we shall commence the next session with this issue.
“My offence was asserting my independence and insisting we do the right thing at all times and expose corrupt people in the house. Lately I openly disagree with some principal officers on the issue of immunity and budget issues. I still maintained I will never support immunity.
“I strongly believe with every conviction that in cleaning up the budget system and considering what transpired during 2016 budget which I have all the facts documented, Speaker Dogara, Deputy Speaker Lasun, Whip Doguwa and minority Leader Leo Ogor should resign.
“These members of the body of principal officers were not comfortable with my independent disposition and my refusal to cover up their unilateral decision to allocate to themselves 40billion naira out of the 100billion allocated to the entire National Assembly.
“My inability to admit into the budget almost 30 billion personal requests from Mr. Speaker and the 3 other principal officers also became an issue. I have every documented evidence to this effect.
“I gave Mr. Speaker statistics of 2000 new projects introduced into the budget by less than 10 committee chairmen without the knowledge of their committee members he did nothing about it because he was part of the mess yet he is talking about improving the budget system.
“A coward, hypocrite and pretender of the highest order. Mr. President must be very careful with him. He wines with Mr. President and dines with Mr. President’s enemies. I am glad that I am finally free from his emotional blackmail of constantly trying to make me see my appointment as appropriation chairman as a favour.
“I will be releasing a more detailed statement in due course. If I am not allowed to exercise my privilege, I shall consider legal options. I can no longer bear the brunt of abuses and baseless allegations keeping quiet all in the name of “confidentiality” expected of an appropriation chairman.
“I will not allow anybody no matter how highly placed to destroy my life as intended by the full statement of Speaker Yakubu Dogara. Now Nigerians will see clearly the ulterior motive behind the desperate moves for immunity for principal officers of the National Assembly.
Responding, Dogara described the allegation from Jibrin against him in the budget controversy as an afterthought and debunked the claims by Jibrin that he was removed because he did not support the immunity proposal in the House for presiding officers of the National Assembly.
Dogara in a statement through the House Committee Chairman on Media and Public Affairs, Abdulrazak Namdas wondered why the former Appropriations Committee Chairman had waited for too long to make the allegation.
“We wish to say that it is the prerogative of the Selection Committee of the House to appoint and remove Committee Chairmen. That power has been so exercised in the case of Hon. Abdulmumin Jibrin as chairman of Appropriation Committee,” the statement read.
“Most of the allegations on the 2016 budget process and his opposition to immunity of Presiding officers are non-issues and mere after though manufactured simply because the House relieved him of his position.
“If he had all these ‘facts’ before, why didn’t he make them public? Why is he doing that now? We must make it abundantly clear that he was not removed because of his support or otherwise on immunity bill. After all, he is not the only one who opposed the bill.
“The bill is still pending before committee on review of constitution and it has to be voted upon by each and every member of the House, get Senate concurrence, endorsed by two-third of the 36 State Houses of Assembly and be assented to by the President.
“It is a cheap blackmail on the part of Hon. Jibrin to even insinuate that he was removed because he opposed immunity bill.”
Story by David Oputah
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