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Unending revelations in Dogara’s padding scandal

The most recent unfolding from the unending 2016 budget padding scandal reveals that the former chairman of the House committee on Appropriation, Abdulmumin Jibrin who has been in public light since he accused the Speaker Yakubu Dogara of padding the 2016 Budget may have played his accusation cards to heat up the polity after his failure and alleged shady deals during his chairmanship of the committee.

Gabriel Onoja, a member of the National Assembly Service Commission has revealed in a series of fresh allegations that the former chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations, Abdulmumin Jibrin is merely insulting the intelligence of the members of the House as though “he is dealing with a clan of nincompoops.”

There are claims by other members of the house that Jibrin’s labelling 12 members and the speaker  as dishonest is to cover up the true extent of his involvement in what he is being accused.

Gabriel described Jibrin as “a thief that has gone to town to call everyone a thief.” He claimed, “Jibrin enjoyed all that came with being the chairman of that ‘juicy’ committee for as long as the honeymoon lasted. We did not hear about how he was being coerced into doing things that run contrary to his saintly belief. The entire process that the budget must pass through him before passage, which was his responsibility, took place under his watch without as much as a whimper that something was not right with the figures.”

According to Onoja, it is before Jibrin’s public announcement to have willfully resigned from the office, it is likely that he was sacked disgracefully “for the crimes he committed against the rest of us (house) by improving on the strategy for stealing money when many of us are shouting hoarse that the scale of corruption that had prevailed in the past is not sustainable.

 

“The House speaker, Honorable Yakubu Dogara had announced the man (Jubrin’s) sack before he hurriedly let on to journalists that he resigned. If he had resigned to be a whistle-blower as he claims, he would have been able to tell the world the so called fraud he said he uncovered before his sack was announced. We would have all been singing his praises today if that was the sequence of events.”

Another fresh accusation made against Jibrin is that if his claims were true, he should have conveniently named those involved. If Jubrin wanted “to come clean, and that is assuming he genuinely committed these atrocious thefts with the active participation of the leadership as he is trying make us believe, he would have been able to immediately lift the lid on the sleaze at the point when he announced his hallucinatory resignation. The number of hours it took him to start dishing out his own set of figures and naming names were crucial time during which he has had time to rehearse in from of his dressing mirror, possibly with an acting director, to ensure he sounded convincing after editing the facts to leave out his own role in the entire sordid affair.”

It is thought that Jibrin should have allowed other Nigerians to take the matter over after his claims since there are organizations and activists that would have followed up to ensure a suitable end of what transpired among the lawmakers such that it would have been easier to know those that abused the sacred mandate that constituents entrusted to them.

Now that many are echoing the noise made by the former Chairman, this has caused needless heating up of House of Representatives’ polity.

One confusing issue surrounding these budget padding scandals is why Dogara has not taken up Jibrin on his accusation other than his decision to remove him from being the chairman of the committee. Many think this is so because both  were friends, especially after Jibrin led the election which announced Yakubu Dogara as the Speaker of the house.

‘Seyifunmi Adebote for encomium.ng

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