BEVERLY HILLS, JULY 28, (THEWILL) – Allegations by the immediate past Chairman, House Committee on Appropriations, Hon. Abdulmumini Jibrin, that the Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, and three other principal officers were involved in the 2016 budget padding scandal, have come to many as a shock. This is not unconnected with the fact that the House had denied any complicity while the controversy that delayed the passage of the budget lasted.
Jibrin said the Speaker was a principal character in the padding, alleging that he injected N40 billion for self and some principal officers, out of the N100 billion approved for members’ constituency projects.
According to him, the speaker, alongside his deputy, Yusuf Lasun, Chief Whip, Alhassan Doguwa and Minority Whip, Leo Ogor, conspired to earmark the said ₦40 billion. While the Speaker had earlier said the House would “institutionally” deal with the matter, the lower chamber responded through its spokesman, Abdulrasak Namdas, that the Speaker is not culpable in anyway.
Namdas stated that Jibrin was sacked as the committee chairman based on acts of misconduct, incompetence and abuse of budgetary processes. He indicted Jibrin of attempts to inflate the budget by about N250 billion, hinting that the matter may be referred to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.
The ex-committee chairman had accused the Speaker and his co-travelers, of step-by-step plots to hijack the budget consideration process, in order to perfect injecting frivolous line items into the country’s income and spending estimate.
This is a grave offence against the sensibility of Nigerians.
Among those who have come hard on the House is former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who said the scandal has vindicated his 2012 comment that members of the National Assembly are corrupt. Obasanjo canvassed that the nation gets “men and women of integrity into the place,” advising President Muhammadu Buhari to be vigilant by ensuring that “whatever should not pass should not pass.”
THEWILL demands that the issue should not be swept under the carpet as an internal affair of the National Assembly. This is one big scandal that brings to light how the nation’s annual budgets have been padded over the years to the people’s disadvantage. Indeed, this corrupt practice by the lawmakers goes a long way in further battering the nation’s ailing economy as it shortchanges the people who elected them for fair representations.
We would want the House to refer the matter to the nation’s anti-graft agencies for investigation, just as 113 Reps members were reported to have called for “an external investigation with a view to finding out if our principal officers are guilty or not”. It is necessary for the lower chamber to do so as to save the House from public ridicule and prevent Nigerians from seeing every one of them as corrupt and self-serving.
This is the only way the National Assembly, at large, can absorb itself of complicity and enhance transparency and accountability in its legislative duties. Leadership demands trust and must stand tall against all forms of corruption or abuse of office, which is what this scandal has breached.
THEWILL calls on civil society groups and the media to ensure that this matter is kept in the front burner until the truth is unraveled and those who abused the exalted office they occupy in trust for Nigerians are prosecuted and punished for this brazen act of corruption. It is our belief that the anti-corruption fight of President Muhammadu Buhari will amount to nothing if this matter is not satisfactorily investigated with those found culpable punished.
The legislators must abide by the oath of office, which they swore to, by respecting the provisions of their rules and the Nigerian Constitution. They must be told that they are elected to legislate on matters that promote good governance and not for seeking self-serving avenues to corruptly enrich themselves.
Considering that this is entrenched practice that has been happening over the years in the National Assembly, Nigerians, particularly the Executive arm of government, must be vigilant to ensure that this dishonourable act does not repeat itself. This is all the more reason why the full weight of the law must be visited on those found culpable so as to serve as deterrent to other lawmakers and their collaborators out to dubiously enrich themselves to the detriment of the people they are expected to serve.
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