| Jibrin, left; Dogara, right |
The former chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on
Appropriation, Abdulmumin Jibrin, has spoken of what he claimed were the
real reasons for his removal on Wednesday.
Mr. Jibrin, a former ally of the speaker, Yakubu Dogara, had said that he chose to step down for personal reasons.
In a statement he released late Thursday, Mr. Jibrin raised a humongous allegation of fraud against Mr. Dogara.
He accused the speaker of attempting to pad N30 billion into the controversial 2016 budget.
Read his full statement:
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.
Speaker denies
The speaker has denied the allegations.
A statement by the spokesperson for the house, Abdulrazak Namdas, dismissed Mr. Jibrin’s claims.
Full statement:
Our attention has been down to media statements made by the former
Chairman of House Appropriation Committee, Hon Abdulmumuni Jibrin
wherein he made wild allegations against the House of Representatives
and its leaders.
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.
Most of the allegations on the 2016 budget process and his opposition
to immunity of Presiding officers are non-issues and mere afterthought
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?
Hon. Abdulmumin Jibrin, like any other member of the House knows that
there are conventions and precedents as it relates to budgets and
projects for principal officers of the National Assembly. Why is he
making it an issue now? In any case, he is entitled to his opinion as a
Nigerian and as a legislator while acting within the laws of Nigeria and
rules of the House.
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.
He should not distract the House from giving legislative support on
important issues facing the government concerning the revival of the
economy, insecurity in the country, pursuit of anti-corruption measures,
poverty alleviation, infrastructural development etc. The Nigerian
people are simply not ready to waste their time on personal issues and
personal egos of our leaders. We should face the urgent tasks before us
for which we were elected.
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PLEASE BE POLITE