Just few days after he decided to heed the call of his party, the All
Progressives Congress (APC) and stayed away from further commenting on
his allegations of budget padding leveled against Speaker of the House
of Representatives and 12 others, the former Chairman of the House
Committee on Appropriation, Mr. Abdulmumin Jibrin has opened another can
of worms again.
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| Abdulmumin Jibrin |
Jibrin had following the letter by the APC on Thursday directing him to stop “transmitting an opinion on the matter to the public” adding that it was, “looking into it towards finding possible solution” stopped commenting on the allegation in the media.
Aside the letter, it was learnt that party officials at a meeting
with Jibrin on Tuesday and and in subsequent interactions appealed to
the lawmaker to withdraw his petitions so that the crisis could be
handled as “a family affair.”
But Jibrin after insisting Saturday on forging ahead with his petition, took to twitter on Sunday opening more can of worms.
Jirbin in his latest outburst accused two serving governors and three
former members of the House of Reps, saying their names will be
revealed in due course.
He said Speaker Dogara is the son, father, grand father and great grand father of padding!
The lawmaker also said he no longer feel safe, alleging that there
are plans by Speaker Dogara, the 12 others and some vested interest
within and outside the House to kill him.
“It has once again become necessary for me to make some statements,
clarifications&further revelations. As you are aware, my party the
APC has intervened in the current crisis,following allegations of
corruption embezzlement&gross abuse of office leveled against
Speaker Yakubu Dogara, three other principal officers and 9 other
members, of which none had responded to any.”
“As i said earlier, it is only the 13 members of the House that are
on trial not the House of Representative as an institution.
Surprisingly they have resorted to using every tactics to narrow the
allegations to only issue of padding, which in itself is a grievous
offense, ignoring tens of other criminal allegations contained in my
petition to the anti-corruption agencies. In doing so, they
mischievously expanded the scope of the culpability to give an
impression that the entire House, Senate and even the Executive arm of
government and some individuals outside NASS are on trial. This is a
wicked attempt to drag many institutions and individuals into the matter
to neutralize the issue, spread fear and sell the dummy that the entire
country will go down if this matter is dealt with decisively,the
biggest blackmail on the entire country I have ever seen.”
“Nigerians should know that the whole agenda of this blackmail is
being coordinated by two serving Governors and three former members I
will give their names in due course. They have been running pillar to
post and I keep wondering what really are they afraid of.”
Jibrin who said he respected the decision of the party not to further
comment on the issue but insisted on pursuing his allegation said he
kept close watch on what was going on.
He said he discovered after three days of careful observation and
receiving information from very patriotic Nigerians, the two serving
governors and three former members “designed a grand plan to provide
soft-landing for Dogara and 12 others, give them time to clean up the
mess on their desk,destroy whatever evidence in their possession and
reach, spread money across members to buy signature, try to scare and
drag as many people as they can into this matter, invade the party and
top government officials and influential people that have the ears of
the president and try to change the media and public narrative by
embarking on very expensive media campaign to discredit and attack my
person with all manner of lies they can concoct.I have made it a duty to
respond to all the allegations against me”
He said the latest plot by the group has already been taken care of
in his memoir which he will begin to release any moment as against his
earlier promise of doing so on his birthday.
“The latest they brought up this weekend has already been taken care
of in my soon-to-be-released memoir But I have decided not to wait until
my birthday September to release it.I will start releasing the memoir
in piecemeal moment from now so that answers to their cheap blackmail,
including the junk and lies they peddle in the media, will be provided.”
The lawmaker said he was “shocked and dumbfounded to see the Speaker
on television saying padding is not an offence, wondering why he has
“the temerity to make such reckless, insensitive, arrogant and
fraudulent statement right within the sanctity of the Presidential
Villa, a place that symbolizes zero tolerance for corruption.”
“If you watched the Speaker on the screen talking, you can clearly
see that from his face, cap, Agbada, down to his shoes, it was a
radiation of corruption, dirty money, monumental fraud and abuse of
office. It was irritating to see such character around the corridors of
power. He didn’t know that by that statement he has clearly confirmed my
allegation that he and 3 others connived with some committee
chairmen to insert into the budget over 2,000 items worth 284billion
naira. No wonder he refused to take action despite my complaint.”
“Now that I have provided evidence that he and 3 others masterminded
the insertion of 40 billion into budget, another wasteful 20 billion
naira and attempt to force me to insert another 30 billion naira into
the budget. So padding is no longer an offense???!”
“So the Speaker is saying the nine roads he inserted into the budget
which he fraudulently sandwiched into 4 roads and inserted billions into
that without any design or costing is not an offense?Or the water
project he hijacked from the budget and took to his farm s not an
offense? Or moving ten solar boreholes to a place that probably requires
just two is not an offense? This has really proved that Speaker Dogara
is the son, father, grand father and great grand father of padding!
Nigerians are watching!!!”
Jirbin called on All government and security agencies and top
government functionaries to be wary of the activities of thee two
governors and three former members going round trying to blackmail the
Senate and the Executive arm of government in order to diffuse and
neutralize the allegations.
“It will be unfair to drag the Senate or senators into this. Everyone
knows that it is the House that has commanding powers of
appropriation. There is nothing in the senate appropriation committee
secretariat, that is why I requested for the protection of only that of
the House. when I heard Dogara was planning to destroy the computers and
the hardware. The Senate president was too busy then to even get
involved. He was always receiving what I later realized was skeletal
briefing from the Speaker.
“It is a strong tradition of the National Assembly that in an event
of disagreement between standing committee of the Senate and the House,
that of the House supersedes. That was exactly what we did on 2016
budget except that of Health, where we adopted the report of the Senate
because the chairman House Committee on Health practically converted the
budget to his personal estate, moving massive amount of money that
made the whole exercise looked like a big joke. I heard the chairman Hon
Chike Okafor talking, trying to put defence on TV, and I simply said
truly looters have no shame in Nigeria. The Minister of Health Prof
Adewale is alive to testify and he knows the role I played to get the
health budget, at least to an implementable shape.”
On the allege plot to kill him, he said: “I have prepared myself for
any eventuality. I have spoken to my mum and dad extensively during the
weekend. I have prepared my family. I have handed a handwritten note and
documents to a SAN,a man of integrity&other persons that I believe
will lay it bare if they kill me”
Source: Abusidiqu
