Appropriation committee members disown Jibrin

Members of the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriation have disowned the committee’s former Chairman, Mr. Abdulmumin Jibrin.

The members said that Jibrin’s “budget padding” allegations against the Speaker, Mr. Yakubu Dogara, and three other principal officers did not reflect the position of the Committee on Appropriation.

The other three are the Deputy Speaker, Mr. Yussuff Lasun; the Chief Whip, Mr. Alhassan Ado-Doguwa; and the Minority Leader, Mr. Leo Ogor.

The Deputy Chairman of the committee, Mr. Chris Azubuogu, had led eight other members of the committee to a news briefing at the National Assembly on Friday to disown Jibrin.

Azubuogu served as deputy to Jibrin and still serves as the deputy chairman.

They stated that as chairman, Jibrin mostly worked alone and did not carry members of the committee along.

Azubuogu said, “As members of the Committee on Appropriation, we want to state that the ousted chairman’s action does not in any way reflect the position of the committee.

“He had constantly allotted all the actions and decisions of the committee to himself without conferring with the members.

“We wish to state that we totally disassociate ourselves from all the calculated plots to pull down the integrity of the leadership and members of the 8th House of Representatives”,

The lawmakers claimed that Jibrin hired the services of a consultant to work on the budget alone and did not brief members on the details of the 2016 budget.”

They added that Jibrin only surfaced with the budget after he had been in hiding from members for about three weeks.

The committee members explained, “For the avoidance of doubt, we wish to state that a comprehensive collation of the reports of the budget from the various standing committees of the House was done by the Appropriation Committee, which was in the process of deliberation when the ousted chairman unilaterally hijacked the entire budget to a hideout with his consultant without the consent of the committee.

“That was the last time the committee saw the budget, only for Jibrin to resurface about three weeks later, with a report purported to have come from the committee.”

Speaking further, Azubuogu said members reported Jibrin to Dogara, demanding that he should be removed from office.

He claimed that though Dogara opted to resolve the issue amicably, the Speaker was compelled to remove Jibrin after the entire House became unhappy with the former chairman’s “usual recalcitrant” attitude.

“In response to this demand by members, Mr. Speaker had no choice than to act accordingly in order to maintain the integrity of the whole House.

“We also wish to state for clarity that there is no offence known to law in Nigeria as budget padding, otherwise the entire work of appropriation in the past and in the future will amount to nothing.

“The entire essence of treating a budget would have been unnecessary in the first instance if the National Assembly has no powers over it.”

But, in his reaction, Jibrin made more allegations, including accusing the nine members of the committee, who disowned him, of taking $20,000 each to do a dirty job for Dogara.

He also said there were 40 members of the committee, asking why the 31 others did not side with the nine.

Jibrin claimed that his former committee members told a “bunch of lies.”

He added, “First, only nine out of the 40 Appropriation Committee members agreed to participate in such a press conference after shamelessly collecting $20,000 each, distributed to them yesterday at the Speaker’s residence by his Deputy Chief of Staff, Cyril Maduabum.”

Jibrin also accused Azubuogu, of requesting “111” projects to be included in the budget, which he turned down.

He explained that his period of absence from the committee members was because the Speaker took hold of the budget to make insertions before returning it to him.

Jibrin alleged further that throughout the period his deputy claimed he (Jibrin) was in hiding with the budget, Azubuogu was indeed coming to his house to eat vegetable soup.

He provided what seemed a comic relief, saying, “It is also a blatant lie that I disappeared. I was always at home since we were on a short break.

“Even more shocking is the fact that Azubuogu, who was regularly at my home during that period and always enjoying his favourite wheat and vegetable soup, can go on national TV for a price of $20,000 to tell such shameful lies. Well, CCTVs don’t tell lies.”

Jibrin had alleged on Thursday last week that the four principal officers requested the inclusion of N40bn projects in the 2016 budget, besides sundry projects in sums ranging from N20bn to N30.

He claimed that his refusal to oblige the four principal officers and his opposition to commit several financial infractions was responsible for his sacking by Dogara on Wednesday, last week.

The four principal officers had denied the allegations. On Wednesday, the speaker had threatened to take legal actions against Jibrin if he did not retract his “libelous” allegations within seven days with an apology.