Former Chairman of the House of Representatives
Committee on Appropriation, Abdulmumin Jibrin, has accused Speaker of the
House, Yakubu Dogara and 12 others of planning to kill him.
In a statement he released on Sunday evening,
Jibrin said he no longer feels safe as Dogara and others he accused of
illegally inserting N40b into the 2016 budget have perfected plans to eliminate
him.
”I believe Speaker Dogara, the 12 others and some
vested interest within and outside the House want to kill me. I no longer feel
safe. I have carefully followed their desperation to suppress what will go down
in history as the biggest corruption case in Nigeria. I have prepared myself for
any eventuality. I have spoken to my mum and dad extensively during the
weekend. I have prepared my family. I have handed over a handwritten note and
documents to a popular SAN, a man of integrity and other persons that I believe
will lay it bare even if they succeed in killing me,” Jibrin stated.
The Kano-born member of the Green Chamber in the
National Assembly also accused two serving governors and some politicians of
working to give Speaker Dogara a soft landing on the alleged budget padding.
Jibrin said the two governors and others have
prevented him from seeing President Muhammadu Buhari to lay bare the
allegations against Dogara and 13 other members of the House involved in the
budget padding.
He said Dogara smells of corruption from head to
toe, adding that his (Dogara) statement after visiting President Buhari that he
is not going to resign because budget padding is not corruption has clearly
confirmed his allegation that Dogara and 3 others connived with some committee
chairmen to insert into the budget over 2,000 items worth 284 billion naira.
Read Jibrin’s full statement below:
”It has once again become necessary for me to make
some statements, clarifications and further revelations.
”As you are aware, my party the APC has intervened
in the current crisis, following allegations of corruption, embezzlement and
gross abuse of office I leveled against Speaker Yakubu Dogara, three other
principal officers and 9 other members, of which none had responded to any.
”As I said earlier, it is only the 13 members of
the House that are on trial not the House of Representative as an institution.
Surprisingly, they have resorted to using every tactics to narrow the
allegations to only issue of padding, which in itself is a grievous offense,
ignoring tens of other criminal allegations contained in my petition to the
anti-corruption agencies. In doing so, they mischievously expanded the scope of
the culpability to give an impression that the entire House, Senate and even
the Executive arm of government and some individuals outside NASS are on trial.
”This is a wicked attempt to drag many institutions
and individuals into the matter to neutralize the issue, spread fear and sell
the dummy that the entire country will go down if this matter is dealt with
decisively. This is the biggest blackmail I have ever seen. Nigerians should
know that the whole agenda of this blackmail is being coordinated by a group of
five people, two serving Governors and three former members of the House. I
will give their names in due course. They have been running pillar to post and
I keep wondering what really do they have to hide or are afraid of since they
are not Members of the House.
”The meeting with the party went very well and in
all honesty they were very objective and showed understanding. I told the party
that I will be part of any peaceful resolution EXCEPT on the criminal
allegations I have raised against Speaker Dogara and 12 others. On that, I told
the party there is no going back and further informed them that more
revelations will be made once investigation commences. I also informed the
party that I will stand as witness against them and provide every support that
will help investigation and prosecution of these 13 extremely corrupt members.
The party wrote and asked that Dogara and I should stop further public
statements on this issue. I respected the party and stopped further statement
but kept a close watch on what was going on. Of course I have my network
everywhere.
”After three days of careful observation and
receiving information from very patriotic Nigerians, I discovered a grand plan
by the group of two Governors and three former members designed to provide
soft-landing for Dogara and 12 others, give them time to clean up the mess on
their desk, destroy whatever evidence in their possession and reach, spread
money across members to buy signature of vote of confidence, try to scare and
drag as many people as they can into this matter, invade the party and top government
officials and influential people that have the ears of the president and try to
change the media and public narrative by embarking on very expensive media
campaign to discredit and attack my person with all manner of lies they can
concoct.
”I have made it a duty to respond to all the
allegations against me. The latest they brought up this weekend has already
been taken care of in my soon-to-be-released memoir. But I have decided not to
wait until my birthday in September to release it. I will start releasing the
memoir in piecemeal any moment from now so that answers to their cheap
blackmail, including the junk and lies they peddle in the media, will be
provided. While I was determined to observe the ceasefire, Dogara and his group
of few rogues didn’t. I called Sen Lawali Shuaibu and complained on Thursday,
Friday and Sunday.
He promised to reach the Speaker. On Friday the Speaker
spoke to the press after meeting the president on the matter, and they launched
a massive attack on me on Saturday and today Sunday in the media, while the
party is keeping a sealed lip. No body will blame me that I responded. Iam
completely convinced that the two Governors and three former members were
already at work. I know them like the palms of my hands, and I know how they
operate. But Almighty God is more than them.
”I was shocked and dumbfounded when I saw the
Speaker on television saying padding is not an offense not because of the
disgraceful contradiction after clearly stating that I was “sacked” for padding
but I could not believe he could have the temerity to make such reckless,
insensitive, arrogant and fraudulent statement right within the sanctity of the
president’s Presidential Villa, a place that symbolizes zero tolerance for
corruption. If you watched the Speaker on the screen talking, you can clearly
see that from his face, cap, Agbada, down to his shoes, it was a radiation of
corruption, dirty money, monumental fraud and abuse of office. It was
irritating to see such character around the corridors of power.
”He didn’t know that by that statement he has
clearly confirmed my allegation that he and 3 others connived with some
committee chairmen to insert into the budget over 2,000 items worth 284billion
naira. No wonder he refused to take action despite my complaint. Now that I
have provided evidence that he and 3 others masterminded the insertion of 40
billion naira into the budget, another wasteful 20billion naira and attempt to
force me to insert another 30billion naira into the budget, padding is no
longer an offense???!
So the Speaker is saying the nine roads he inserted into
the budget which he fraudulently sandwiched into 4 roads and inserted billions
into that without any design or costing is not an offense? Or the water project
he hijacked from the budget and took to his farm is not an offense? Or moving
ten solar boreholes to a place that probably requires just two is not an
offense? This has really proved that Speaker Dogara is the son, father, grand
father and great grand father of padding! Nigerians are watching!!!
”Let me make further revelations here. In addition
to the allegations I already made, the anti-corruption agencies should ask
Speaker Dogara why on earth he collects 25 million naira every month just to
spend it the way he wants. They should also ask him to provide proof of how he
is funding his farm in Nasarawa State which was just few hectares six months
ago and now miraculously expands to about 100 hectares with new buildings and
state-of-the-art equipment worth millions as well as the mansion he has
suddenly built in Wuse II within six months.
”It will be unfair to drag the Senate or senators
into this matter. Everybody knows that it is the House that has commanding
powers over appropriation. There is nothing in the senate appropriation committee
secretariat, that is why I requested for the protection of only that of the
House when I heard Dogara was planning to destroy the computers and the
hardware.
The Senate president was too busy then to even get involved. He was
always receiving what I later realized was skeletal briefing from the Speaker.
It is also a strong tradition of the National Assembly that in an event of
disagreement between standing committee of the Senate and the House, that of
the House supersedes. That was exactly what we did on 2016 budget except that
of Health, where we adopted the report of the Senate because the chairman House
Committee on Health practically converted the budget to his personal estate,
moving massive amount of money that made the whole exercise looked like a big
joke.
I heard the chairman Hon Chike Okafor talking, trying to put defence on
TV, and I simply said truly looters have no shame in Nigeria. The Minister of
Health Prof Adewale is alive to testify and he knows the role I played to get
the health budget, at least to an implementable shape.
”All government and security agencies and top
government functionaries should be wary of the activities of these two
governors and three former members going round trying to blackmail the Senate
and the Executive arm of government in order to diffuse and neutralize the
allegations that will change the history of Nigerian parliament for good. We
may never have this kind of opportunity to deal decisively with corruption in
the House. We may never!
If you observe carefully, you will notice attempts
last week to wickedly drag the Senate, DSS, SGF and others into this matter.
This is all orchestrated by the group of 2 governors, 3 former members and
Speaker Dogara and his corrupt cabal. Nobody is in a better position than me to
know who the culprits are. The next time you see them in your offices trying to
blackmail you that these allegations will bring down the whole country, report
them to the police immediately. These allegations are on Speaker Dogara and 12
others and will not in anyway bring down the House, the Senate or the Executive
arm of government as they are claiming in their widely spread propaganda.
”Part of the grand plan is also to peg the
blackmail on religious line. Speaker Dogara forgot that it was me, a Muslim
from North West that spearheaded his election despite all the challenges I
faced.
”I believe Speaker Dogara, the 12 others and some
vested interest within and outside the House want to kill me. I no longer feel
safe. I have carefully followed their desperation to suppress what will go down
in history as the biggest corruption case in Nigeria. I have prepared myself
for any eventuality. I have spoken to my mum and dad extensively during the
weekend. I have prepared my family. I have handed over a handwritten note and
documents to a popular SAN, a man of integrity and other persons that I believe
will lay it bare even if they succeed in killing me.
”It is a fact that all the members that signed for
Dogara’s vote of confidence collected money in a shameful and disgraceful
exercise, and despite that the consensus remains the Speaker must step aside
and face external investigation.
”Finally, this cabal of two governors and three
former members have blocked every avenue that I can use to reach the President
so that he can get a different perspective on this issue.
I am therefore left
with no choice than to plead with all our former Heads of State, Gen Yakubu
Gowon, Gen Olusegun Obasanjo, Alh Shehu Shagari, Gen Ibrahim Babangida, Chief
Enest Shonekan, Gen Abdulsalam Abubakar and Dr Goodluck Jonathan and the
diplomatic community, particularly Ambassador of the United States of America,
High Commissioner of the United Kingdom, the German and French Ambassadors and
all well-meaning Nigerians to join in the call on the corrupt and fraudulent
Speaker Dogara and 3 others to reconvene the House immediately, step aside and
allow for a thorough external investigation and also call on the
anti-corruption agencies to expedite action on investigation and commencement
of prosecution in line with the anti corruption stands of this government.
God bless Nigeria.
Hon Abdulmumin Jibrin
APC-Kano
Kiru-Bebeji Federal Constituency
Kano
Hon Abdulmumin Jibrin
APC-Kano
Kiru-Bebeji Federal Constituency
Kano
No comments:
Post a Comment