In a statement he released last night, Jibrin gave a detailed account of how speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara and some other principal officers of the House of Representatives allegedly hijacked the budget consideration process so as to pad it. In this statement, Jibrin alleged that Dogara an the house leadership had resorted to using some elements of the Nigeria police to kidnap, harass, blackmail and intimidate him into silence. Read his statement below...
MY
ALLEGATIONS ARE AGAINST THE QUARTET OF SPEAKER YAKUBU DOGARA, DEPUTY
SPEAKER YUSUF LASUN, HOUSE WHIP ALHASSAN DOGUWA AND MINORITY LEADER LEO
OGOR NOT THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AS AN INSTITUTION AS MR SPEAKER
DESPERATELY WANTS HONOURABLE MEMBERS AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC TO BELIEVE.
I
am compelled again for the purpose of emphasis to state categorically
clear that my allegations are against the quartet of Speaker Yakubu
Dogara, Deputy Speaker Yusuf Lasun, House Whip Alhassan Doguwa and
Minority Leader Leo Ogor not the Honourable House as an institution nor
other members of the body of principal officers. The other members of
the body of principal officers were to the best of my knowledge
completely excluded from decisions on the 2016 budget and the budget
inputs inserted on their names were exclusively carried out by these
QUARTET.
I
have to state this very clearly because these QUARTET have resorted to
desperate moves to drag the entire House of Representatives into the
case of gross abuse of office I have levelled against them as individual
Presiding and Principal officers of the House. This is clearly a
mischievous move to set me on collision with the entire house. They have
also recruited four from the VERY FEW members of their cabal to use
some elements of the Nigeria police to kidnap, harass, blackmail and
intimidate me into silence.
Until
yesterday, the police were laying siege by my house blocking the
entrance and exit shouting that they want budget documents. They
embarrassed my entire family with a nursing mother and a seven-month old
baby that cried all night. The game plan was to arrest me and dump me
in police net while a heavy media propaganda will be carried out to
mislead the world that I have been sacked and police have picked me up
as a culprit in 2016 budget. Whenever I am released, an irreparable
damage would have been done to my person and that will stick for life.
As
God Almighty will have it, I had travelled out of town before they
could execute their evil plan. God is always with the innocent. The
members in the thick of this plot are Hon Jagaba Adams, Hon Jika both
chairmen interior and police affairs respectively, Hon Muhammed Bago,
Hon Muhammed Zakari and the last one I need not to introduce him to
Nigerians, you know him better and know what he is best remembered for.
He is the one who threatened my life and the police are yet to take a
single action on him. He is now the Leader of the Dogara cabal. He calls
the shots in the House. He makes all the decisions of Mr Speaker. He
talks down on members and gets away with it. He has SUDDENLY began
living such an expensive life style. Lately, a former influential
principal officer of the House complained bitterly that it is only
Dogara that will hand such a committee to a person like Hon Herma Hembe
of this world, chairman FCT. They have been running from pillar to post
looking for evidence in their wild dream to nail me. I made a huge
sacrifice to leave, shouldn’t they just leave me alone?
I
therefore urge my Hon. colleagues and the general public to call on
Speaker Yakubu Dogara and the 3 other principal officers to stop their
desperate attempt to drag the entire House of Representatives into this
matter. They should also stop using the House Spokesman Hon Namdas to
issue statements in respect to these allegations because it is a
deliberate attempt to mislead the public into believing that they have
the backing of the entire House on this matter. They should come out and
defend themselves and prepare for the investigation that will be
instituted by the House on this matter. At least the Minority Leader and
Whip have attempted some response which are at best lame! The House of
Representatives as an institution must live above board and will
continue to survive beyond people who abuse public trust like Mr.
Speaker and his 3 cohorts.
Let me make further revelations in addition to the ones I have already made which are in public glare.
ONE: During
the budget period, when they discovered that I was not the kind of a
person they could use to perpetrate their illegality, Mr. Speaker and
the 3 other principal officers took away the entire Appropriation
Committee Secretariat to a secret location where all sort of insertions
were made into the budget. The blackmail has always been – “Abdul people
will laugh at you if anything goes wrong between you and Dogara because
of the lead role you played and the many toes you stepped on to get him
elected”. It’s been a painful experience.
Again
the secretariat was taken away from me on Speaker Dogara’s instruction
for the second time to a location I don’t know and all sort of
insertions into the budgets were made and returned to me for signature. I
said over my dead body! It was a massive crisis behind the scene until
the early morning of the Friday
that Mr President assented the budget. It was Sen Danjuma Goje that
brokered a compromise that since the Deputy Speaker leads the
harmonization committee, he should also sign such that the harmonization
committee will share responsibility with us. Senator Goje pleaded with
me so hard all night and later shouted heavily on me reminding me that
he is not talking to me as a Senator but as a father. I cried heavily
all night.
TWO: When
the budget harmonization committee headed by Deputy Speaker Yusuf Lasun
gave out 80% concession across board to the executive demands during
the harmonization negotiation, it was agreed that the remaining 20%
should go to the entire NASS. The Deputy Speaker excused himself that he
wanted to go and consult with Mr Speaker. He came back after few hours
and in an unprecedented display of greed presented to me a hand written
note distributing the remaining 20% to only principal officers. 70% of
the 20% was reserved for Mr Speaker and himself while the remaining 30%
of the 20% goes to other principal officers. I am sure he will recognize
the hand writing when he sees it. My colleagues didn’t know all of
these.
THREE: Mr.
Speaker also directed me to create what I advised him will be a
controversial line item under service wide vote to introduce about N20
billion project using the name of NASS. He directed me to see a highly
placed PDP politician which I did and collected the documents. I advised
him repeatedly against it but he kept pressuring me until I bluntly
told him I will not!
FOUR: When
the Appropriation Committee received all the budget reports from
standing committees, an analysis was conducted. We discovered that about
10 only out of the 96 Standing Committees of the House introduced about
2,000 (two thousand) projects without the knowledge of their committee
members amounting to about N284, 000, 000, 000 (Two hundred and
eighty-four billion naira). I was alarmed. But I was cautious because at
our pre-budget meeting with the committee chairmen, I was clearly
warned not to touch their budgets. I reported the matter to the speaker.
He did nothing about it obviously because he was working behind the
scene with the committee chairmen. That was the beginning of the whole
budget problem from the side of House and the whole exercise had to go
through several versions before it was passed.
So,
is it Abdul that introduced 2000 projects into budget worth N284
billion? But I quietly bore the pain and abuses from all over the
country and continued to defend the committee inputs as a show of
loyalty to the institution I represent which I so much love and still
have many great minds in there. Apart from Chairman Agriculture Hon
Mongunu who owned up and explained his inputs at the only executive
session I was allowed to attend, the other few chairmen who loaded the
budget kept quiet and watched me bashed from every angle by angry
Nigerians.
People
have asked why did I wait this long to open up, so much was happening
behind the scene. I fought the battle of my life to raise these issues
internally and get Mr. Speaker to address them to no avail. I pushed so
hard that I got frustrated and depressed. All my attempts met brick
walls. That was why some members were always raising their voice against
me because they do not have the facts. I later on realized that the
Speaker enjoyed that so much and colluded with his cabal to dump
everything on me. I am sure not too long some members that knew what I
went through will come out and testify. I also have evidence to show my
internal struggles.
In
any case, under circumstances like this, and for young people like us
that are lucky to have accelerated career growth, the system scares you
from becoming a whistle blower. They will tell you that if you do such,
nobody will trust you or have confidence in you again. They will scare
you that it is not good for your image and it will affect your career
progression. Many young people in different sectors are faced with such
frustrating situation. Even at the moment, if I take the advice of some
people, I will get deeply scared and just keep quiet, so that I can grow
career wise? My usual response to them is that, isn’t that selfish?
Your only luck will be if a trigger occurs then you open up. This is one
such trigger! In any case, I would have opened up anyway. I have
written so much about these issues and more on NASS. I posted over a
month ago on my Facebook page that I will release the piece as part of
my 40th birthday in September. Well, I never knew it will come much
earlier.
Some
people are also saying I kept quiet while it was good and now I am
talking because things have gone sour. Many members of the House and
Nigerians will be shocked to know that there has NEVER been good times
between myself and Speaker Dogara. It took few weeks after his election
as Speaker for me to realize I never really knew him well. I was hasty
to judge him by his innocent looking personality. We practically
disagree on everything. From when he started conducting himself like a
lord, wanting everybody around him to just say yes sir and go, shutting
and looking down at his colleagues, playing double game between the
executive and legislature, drafting of a new house rule, senseless
splitting of committees which raised the numbers of committees to 96,
appointment of committee chairmen, Chairmanship of NILS, issues of bills
and allotment of sponsors, chairmanship of budget consultative
committee, budget process and house inputs, the PIB, his divide and rule
approach, his frequent dealings with heads of MDA’s as if he is a
committee chairman and so many other issues. In all of these issues,
there is none that has not remained controversial till date.
All
these forced me to stay away from him except on official assignment. I
can count how (many)times I have been to his office or home. I stayed
away completely. It was such a frustrating and depressing period for me.
Who will I complain to? How do I face the world and say I got it wrong
after playing such a lead role in his emergence? When you see a house
you sacrificed everything to build is falling apart and the driver
believes he is firmly in charge because he has 8 votes advantage, you
are left with no choice than to tie your seat belt for obvious
eventuality.
I
must admit I made an error of judgement. I don’t know to whom and from
where I will start apologising for not heeding to wise counsel. There is
nothing I am saying now that I have not discussed or warned speaker
Dogara on the few occasions that I sorted and got private audience with
him. But he has been hijacked and surrounded himself with a small cabal
of sycophants, corrupt, mediocre, money hungry, vindictive, envious,
self-serving small minds who have already done an irreparable damage to
his person and office.
Speaker
Dogara has completely derailed, remains clueless, keeps on with an
unmatched ego and surely leading the House to the biggest scandal it may
ever experience. He has failed to live above the fog in public duty and
private thinking, a direct opposite of what my favourite American Poet
Josiah Gilbet Holland prayed Lord to grant us in leaders.
All
I am asking for is my right to be heard by my colleagues which they
denied me. I am calling on my colleagues to plead with Speaker Yakubu
Dogara, Deputy Lasun, Whip Doguwa and Minority leader Ogor to stop
obstructing justice and allow me my right to be heard by the House. It
is the House that will institute a special investigation on this matter
to allow me testify and provide evidence before any other external
action.
I will make a more detailed statement in due course.
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