THE furore in the House of Representatives following allegations of budget ‘padding’ against the leadership of the House has taken an unexpected turn after the whistle blower, Abdulmumin Jibrin, has alleged ‘threat to his life’.
Jibrin, a former chairman of the House committee on appropriations, had accused the Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, his deputy, Lasun Yusuf, Minority leader, Leo Ogor and House Whip, Alhassan Doguwa, tampered with the 2016 budget and attempted to ‘pad’ about N40 billion from the N100 billion meant for those projects to themselves.
The revelation had sparked crisis in the House of Representatives, spurring public reactions calling for the Speaker to step-down and for an in-depth investigations of all allegations raised by Mr. Jibrin by the relevant security agencies.
Bothered about the negative impact the crisis would weigh on the party, the Speaker of the House, Yakubu Dogara and other principal officers, who are mainly members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), the APC leadership initiated a peace move and ordered parties involved in the crisis to refrain from further public discussion on the issue.
Probably observing the order of the party’s leadership as against his earlier threat of daily public revelations, Jibrin and other parties involved in the crisis have refrained from public altercations.
Unexpectedly, three days later, Mr. Jibrin broke his silent in a series of tweets from his twitter handle (@AbdulAbmJ), noting that while he respected the party which had stopped him from further statements, he discovered from his careful observation and hints from ‘patriotic’ Nigerians of plan against him.
He said: “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 spread money across members to buy signature, 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 lawmaker who went further to say he is no longer safe, alleged that “I believe Speaker Dogara, the 12 others and some vested interest within and outside the House wants to kill me,” adding that “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 a handwritten note and documents to a SAN, a man of integrity and other persons that I believe will lay it bare if they kill 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 3 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, Ambassador of the United States of America, High Commissioner of 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 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.
“May God Almighty expose and disgrace these 2 Governors, 3 formers members, Dogara & his corrupt cabal in the House. God bless Nigeria,” he concluded.