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.
..Premiumtimes
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