Dogara forced me to insert N20billion into 2016 Budget – Jibrin

7 years ago

Dogara forced me to insert N20billion into 2016 Budget – Jibrin

Ousted chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations, Abdulmumin Jibrin, has made more shocking revelations on how 10 standing committees secretly injected constituency projects worth N284 billion into the 2016 budget without the knowledge of the House.
The embattled lawmaker also claimed that the speaker, Yakubu Dogara, allegedly convinced him to ship over N20 billion into the budget through Service Wide Vote.

In a statement issued in Abuja, Jibrin alleged that some cabals had hijacked the Speaker to always do their bidding.

He, however, said the Majority Leader, Femi Gbajabiamila, and three other principal officers were not part of the secret deal, adding that the budget inputs inserted on their names were exclusively carried out by the speaker, his deputy, Yussuff Lasun; Chief Whip, Ado Doguwa and the Minority Leader, Leo Ogor.

His statement reads in full:

“I am compelled again for the purpose of emphasis to state categorically 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.

“I have to state this very clearly because this quartet has resorted to desperate moves to drag the entire House of Representatives into the case of gross abuse of office I have leveled against them as individual presiding and principal officers of the House. This is 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 to my house, blocking the entrance and exit, shouting that they wanted 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.

“When ever I am released, an irreparable damage would have been done to my person that will stick for life.

“As God Almighty will have it, I had traveled out of town before they could execute their evil plan. God is always with the innocent. The members in the tick of this plot are Jagaba Adams, Jika both chairmen interior and police affairs respectively, Muhammed Bago, Muhammed Zakari and the last one I need not introduce him to Nigerians.

“During the budget period, when they discovered that I was not the kind of person they could use to perpetrate their illegality, Mr Speaker and the three 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 didn’t know and all sort of insertions into the budget 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 led 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 at me reminding me that he was not talking to me as a senator but as a father. I cried heavily all night.

“So, is it Abdul that introduced 2000 projects into budget worth 284 billion? But I quietly bore the pain and abuses from all over the country and continue 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.’’

“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 favorite American Poet, Josiah Gilbet Holland, prayed Lord to grant us 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,” the statement added.