Former chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on
Appropriation, Abdulmumin Jibrin, who was sacked by Speaker Yakubu
Dogara over alleged padding of the 2016 budget, has released a statement
in which he alleged that Dogara and some other lawmakers tried to
allocate to themselves 40billion naira out of the 100billion allocated
to the entire National Assembly. He called for Dogara’s resignation.
Read the full statement after the cut…
“I
am obliged to make further statement after listening to the full
statement of Speaker Yakubu Dogara on why I had to leave as Chairman
Appropriation. It is a fact I went up to the Speaker and told him
clearly I wanted to leave. He confirmed this in his statement but it
appeared he wished he had fired me instead of my personal decision to
step down.
Thereafter
I proceeded to my office. I was therefore not surprised when an aide of
mine walked into my office to inform me that the Speaker had announced
my departure. I was relieved and went straight to address the press and
released a statement. It was only later in the evening while monitoring
the news that I watched the full statement he made on the floor. Speaker
Dogara’s statement was a complete misrepresentation of the facts,
false, mischievous, unfair and a calculated attempt to bring my name to
disrepute, blackmail, silence and use me as a scape goat.
The
plan is to execute it just before the recess so that by the time we
return I would 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.
This was the last option they had after every attempt to find something
to nail me failed. It is a known fact that I am a very blunt person by
nature. I don’t know how to pretend. I don’t do eye service neither will
I ever be a sycophant. I don’t give returns. I just do my job
faithfully and dedicatedly. My offence was asserting my independence and
insisting that we do the right thing at all times and expose corrupt
people in the House.
Lately
I openly disagreed with some principal officers on the issue of
immunity for Lawmakers and budget issues. I still maintained I will
never support immunity. I strongly believe with every conviction that in
cleaning up the budgeting 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.
The
four of them met and took that decision. In addition to billions of
wasteful projects running over 20 billion they allocated to their
constituencies. They must come out clean. 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. After the submission of the first version of
the budget which was returned by Mr. President, I briefed members in
executive session and told them as agreed at our pre budget meeting with
chairmen and deputy chairmen of standing committees, we simply adopted
their reports with little amendments. No body faulted my submission.
Members
insisted they must know how the N100 billion was allocated. I told them
the truth. Since after that meeting, Mr Speaker with the suport of the
three other principal officers effectively blocked me from briefing
members, ensured I was not at the last executive session and refused to
investigate issues I raised that I believe must be addressed if we
intend to build a better budget system for the House. 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. I did nothing wrong. I worked
within the rules of the House and instructions of Mr. Speaker. During
the budget period, Mr. President graciously granted myself and Sen. Goje
audience.
It
was a very good meeting. Speaker Dogara took it extremely personal that
we saw the president without his knowledge and went on to scuttle all
our efforts to help the president during the budget process because he
wanted to be seen by the president as the only good man. He forgot that
he sees heads of MDA’s daily which he enjoys doing more than his job as
Speaker for reasons best known to him anyway, without Mr. President’s
knowledge. That is how petty and narrow minded Dogara can be. 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.
Presidents 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.
He
has failed to realise that I came a long way and even attained chairman
finance when he was chairman House services before this appointment.
Seeing as the Speaker claimed that they have taken the decision or were
going to take decision to replace me, he now has a responsibility to
tell the world why they took or were going to take such decision. I
challenge them to tell the world why? I will be releasing a more
detailed statement in due course.
Meanwhile,
I intend to explore all internal avenues of the House to brief my
colleagues in detail and testify against Speaker Dogara, Deputy Lasun,
Whip Doguwa and Minority leader Leo Ogor on why they should resign. 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.”
