SAN FRANCISCO, July 25, (THEWILL) – Former Chairman of the House of Representatives Appropriation Committee, Abdulmumin Jibrin, has released shocking details about the padding of the 2016 budget.
THEWILL recalls that the lawmaker had threatened to expose the Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, and the other principal officers of the House – Deputy Speaker Yusuff Lasun, House Whip Alhassan Ado Doguwa and Minority Leader Leo Ogor, in reaction to his removal from the Committee.
According to a detailed statement released by Jibrin, the N40 billion padding was done at a secret location with the backing of Dogara and the three principal officers adding that the allegation of padding was not against the entire members of the House.
He called on his colleagues to listen to his side of the story and set up a panel to probe the matter adding that 10 Committee Chairmen were also involved in injecting N284b into the budget with 2000 fictitious projects.
“During the budget period, when they discovered that I was not the kind of a person they could use to perpetrate their illegality, Mr. Speaker and the three other principal officers took away the entire Appropriation Committee secretariat to a secret location where all sort of insertions were made into the budget,” he alleged.
“It’s been a painful experience. Again the secretariat was taken away from me on Speaker Dogara’s instruction for the second time to a location I don’t know and all sort of insertions into the budgets were made and returned to me for signature.
“I said over my dead body! It was a massive crisis behind the scene until the early morning of the Friday that Mr President assented the budget.
“It was Sen Danjuma Goje that brokered a compromise that since the Deputy Speaker leads the Harmonisation Committee, he should also sign such that the Harmonisation Committee will share responsibility with us.
“Senator Goje pleaded with me so hard all night and later shouted heavily on me, reminding me that he is not talking to me as a Senator but as a father. I cried heavily all night.
“When the budget Harmonisation Committee headed by Deputy Speaker Yusuf Lasun gave out 80 per cent concession across board to the executive demands during the harmonisation negotiation, it was agreed that the remaining 20 per cent should go to the entire NASS.
“The Deputy Speaker excused himself that he wanted to go and consult with Mr. Speaker. He came back after few hours and in an unprecedented display of greed, presented to me a hand written note distributing the remaining 20 per cent to only principal officers.
“70 per cent of the 20 per cent was reserved for Mr. Speaker and himself while the remaining 30 per cent of the 20 per cent goes to other principal officers. I am sure he will recognise the handwriting when he sees it. My colleagues didn’t know all of these.
“Mr Speaker also directed me to create what I advised him will be a controversial line item under Service Wide Vote to introduce about N20 billion project using the name of NASS. He directed me to see a highly-placed PDP politician, which I did and collected the documents. I advised him repeatedly against it but he kept pressuring me until I bluntly told him I will not!
“When the Appropriation Committee received all the budget reports from standing committees, an analysis was conducted. We discovered that about 10 only out of the 96 Standing Committees of the House introduced about 2,000 (two thousand) projects without the knowledge of their committee members amounting to about N284, 000, 000, 000 ( Two hundred and eighty four billion).
“I was alarmed. But I was cautious because at our pre-budget meeting with the committee Chairmen, I was clearly warned not to touch their budgets. I reported the matter to the speaker. He did nothing about it obviously because he was working behind the scene with the committee Chairmen.
“That was the beginning of the whole budget problem from the side of House and the whole exercise had to go through several versions before it was passed.
“Apart from Chairman Agriculture Hon Mongunu who owned up and explained his inputs at the only executive session I was allowed to attend, the other chairmen who loaded the budget kept quiet and watched me bashed from every angle by angry Nigerians.
“Many members of the House and Nigerians will be shocked to know that there has never been good times between myself and Speaker Dogara. It took few weeks after his election as Speaker for me to realise I never really knew him well. I was hasty to judge him by his innocent looking personality.
“I don’t know to whom and from where I will start apologising for not heeding to wise counsel. There is nothing I am saying now that I have not discussed or warned Speaker Dogara on the few occasions that I sought and got private audience with him.”
About the Author
