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| Yakubu Dogara, Speaker, House of Representatives |
Jibrin was removed on Wednesday as Chairman, Appropriation committee of the House by Dogara.
Reacting
to his removal on his twitter handle @AbdulABMJ on Thursday evening,
Jibrin revealed that his inability to admit into the 2016 budget almost
N30 billion personal requests from Speaker Yakubu Dogara and the three
other principal officers pitched him against the House leadership and
led to his decision to vacate the position.
The Kano-born
lawmaker also clarified that he was not sacked from the position by
Dogara as reported by the media but that he stepped down for peace to
reign.
Jibrin said he is obliged to make a further statement after
listening to the full statement of Speaker Dogara on why he had to
leave as Chairman of the committee. “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 scapegoat.” He said.
The lawmaker vowed to pursue
the issue and clear his name when the House resumes from recess. He
alluded to the fact that his decision to assert his independence and
insisting that the right thing be done at all times to expose corrupt
people in the House led to the campaign against him.
Full Statement By Honourable Abdulmumin Jibrin
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 N40 billion
out of the N100 billion allocated to the entire National Assembly.
The four of them met and took that decision. In addition to billions of
wasteful projects running over N20 billion they allocated to their
constituencies. They must come out clean.
My inability to admit
into the budget almost N30 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. Nobody 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 support 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. President’s 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 a 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.
SOURCE: pmnewsnigeria.com
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