There are strong indications that moves
by the All Progressives Congress to resolve the crisis in the House of
Representatives over budget padding have failed.
Fidelis Chidi blog gathered that a
former Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, Mr. Abdulmumin
Jibrin, was insisting on investigations of the petitions he submitted to
security agencies.
The party, it was learnt, after the
meeting it held with Jibrin on Tuesday, had been appealing to the
lawmaker to withdraw his petitions so that the crisis could be handled
as “a family affair.”
It was, however, gathered that while the
former chairman of the appropriation committee had yielded to the
party’s request not to discuss the issue in the media, he had not agreed
to withdraw his petitions.
The APC, in a letter to the former
appropriation committee on Thursday, directed the lawmaker to stop
“transmitting an opinion on the matter to the public” adding that it
was, “looking into it towards finding possible solution.”
But a chieftain of the party, who confided in us ,
said Jibrin told party leaders that since the Speaker of the House,
Yakubu Dogara, said padding was not a crime, security agents should be
allowed to do their job by investigating the matter.
The APC National Working Committee
member stated, “We are still trying to resolve the issue amicably. We
have not been able to find an internal solution to the problem. Jibrin
is insisting on pursuing the case.”
No going back — Jibrin
Jibrin had since Thursday stopped commenting on the allegation in the media after receiving a letter from the party leaders.
He neither picked calls made by one of
our correspondents to his mobile telephone nor replied to enquiries sent
through text messages.
But the lawmaker, via his Twitter handle
early on Saturday made a veiled reference to a statement by Dogara on
Friday that padding was not an offence.
He said that there was no going back on the crusade against budget padding in the House.
“I am carefully observing things with
sealed lips while others are talking. I am with Nigerians and there is
no going back on this crusade!!!”
I’ve no case to answer — Dogara
But, when contacted on Saturday, Dogara’s office said he had given his stance on the budget crisis and would stand by it.
His Special Adviser on Media and Public Affairs, Mr. Turaki Hassan, referred us
to an interview the speaker granted State House correspondents in Abuja
on Friday shortly after Dogara met briefly with President Muhammadu
Buhari.
He said, “Yes, he has already talked. I do not need to say anything again.”
When asked whether Dogara stood by his position of Friday, the media aide replied, “Yes.”
The crisis is beyond our party now — Chief Whip
The Chief Whip of the House, Mr.
Alhassan Ado-Doguwa, said while the intervention of the All Progressives
Congress was appreciated, the matter was strictly not a political
party’s case, but about the integrity of the legislature.
Ado-Doguwa, who is one of the four
principal officers accused by Jibrin, explained, “Of course, we would
have always loved to respect any intervention by our great party (APC).
“But, the problem we have at hand is
unfortunately not a political party’s case. It is not about Speaker
Dogara; it is not also about Honourable Lasun or my humble self as the
Chief Whip of the House, either. This matter is critically fundamental
as it relates to the institutional integrity of the House of
Representatives and National Assembly at large. You must therefore,
understand that it is not purely an APC business.
“We would certainly have our hands tied
in the event where the APC comes up with any so-called ‘political
solutions’ that may contravene our institutional legislative codes.
DSS still guards appropriation office
At the National Assembly, the
secretariat of the Appropriation Committee was still guarded by
operatives of the Department of State Services.
The operatives have laid siege to the office in the last seven days.
They moved in soon after Jibrin submitted his petitions to the EFCC and also visited the DSS’ headquarters in Abuja.
Police to send fresh invitations, as Dogara, Jibrin fail to appear
It was learnt that both Dogara and
Jibrin did not honour the invitation to appear before the police team
investigating the allegations on Friday.
We gathered that the police would send fresh invitations to them this week.
It was learnt that the refusal of Dogara
to honour the invitations by the Special Investigation Panel, was
informed by the political solution being worked out to terminate the
probe.
A senior police officer, who is familiar
with the ongoing investigation into the budget padding saga, said the
police would continue with the probe regardless of the political
solution being adopted by the APC.
The senior officer said it would be
unfortunate if Nigerians allowed the allegations against the House
leadership to be swept under the carpet.
Efforts to get the National Chairman of
the APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun; and the National Secretary of the
party, Mai Bala Buni, on Saturday to know the extent the party had gone
in resolving the matter failed.
Their mobile phone lines indicated that
they were switched off most of the day, while text messages sent to them
to make the enquiry were not replied as of the time of filing this
report.
Several national executive of the party contacted on Saturday also declined to speak on the matter.
Matter not a family affairs, say groups
But security experts and civil rights
groups advised the party to allow the police and the anti-graft
agencies to do their jobs.
A security consultant, Lt.- Col. Sola
Oremade (retd.), said the President would be encouraging corruption if
he directed the police to stop their investigation into the scandal.
He noted that the President would not be
part of the political solution, while chiding Dogara for running to
Buhari for help, instead of appearing before investigators to clear
himself.
Oremade said, “I don’t think the
president would descend so low to stop it, I don’t think he would stop
it (investigation). Dogara has no right to go to the president, he ought
to go to the police, and the issue has nothing to do with the
president. If the president makes the mistake of stopping it, then he is
encouraging corruption and it’s wrong for Dogara to go to the
president, it’s an indication that he has committed an offence.”
Also the Co-Convener, Coalition in
Defence of Nigerian Democracy and Constitution, Ariyo Dare-Atoye, said
the issue was beyond the APC.
He stated, “The business of governance
is a serious one and totally beyond the internal mechanism of the APC.
At this stage, we must presume the Speaker and all those mentioned as
innocent until proven otherwise, but our lawmakers must not take an
undue advantage of the gullibility of our political set-up to undermine
public trust.”
Reps’ group demands speaker’s resignation
Three members of the Transparency Group in the House of Representatives have backed the call for Dogara’s resignation.
The lawmakers, Messrs Baballe Bashir,
Agunsoye Oluwarotimi-Ojo and Abubakar Chika-Adamu in a statement on
Saturday, insisted that Dogara indeed “padded” the budget and should
resign to pave the way for unfettered investigations into the
allegations.
The legislators, who claimed to be
speaking on behalf of other members of the group, advised their
colleagues against signing to pass a confidence vote on Dogara.
They, alleged, “While the entire zonal
intervention for the three senatorial districts of Bauchi State and 12
federal constituencies in the state amounts to N1.6bn, the speaker
criminally inserted about 200 per cent of the amount, totalling
N3,079,000,000 to his constituency alone.
“The same Speaker Yakubu Dogara diverted
50 per cent of the total capital projects allocated to Bauchi State to
the tune of N4,781,003,431 out of N9,231,289,842 allocated to the state
to his constituency.”
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