Jibrin’s Suspension: Falana to file contempt of court charges against Reps

Femi Falana, the Legal Counsel to Abdulmumin Jibrin who was suspended by the House of Representatives during Wednesday plenary has been directed to file contempt charges against the House.

Jibrin disclosed this while responding to the resolution passed by the House on the adoption of the report and recommendations of the Committee in Ethics and Privileges, chaired by Nicholas Ossai.

According to the report, the House slammed a 180 legislative days suspension on Jibrin in the forest instance and outright suspension for the rest of the 8th Assembly if he fails to tender a formal apology to the House, prior to his future resumption of duties in the House.

Failure to adhere to the resolution, the House resolved that Jibrin “should be barred from positions of responsibility in the House until the end of the 8th Assembly.”

Jibrin who spoke at a press briefing held in his Abuja residence, said: “The most important thing is that Nigerians saw the entire process, how the motion was passed and what transpired at the level of the ethics committee and entirely the process was flawed and for me it’s a non-issue and complete nonsense and it is not going to stand anywhere in the world.

“As you are aware the matter is a subject of litigation, I have instructed my lawyer, Femi Falana SAN to file charges of contempt against Speaker Dogara and of course the house of representatives and I’m sure the matter will move over to the judiciary and decision will be taken. I’m pretty sure it will be in my favour.

“Let me say, I will never ever apologise to anybody in the house of representatives, I did not commit any offence, I did not abuse my office. I have said it repeatedly that in the five years that I have served in the house of representatives, I have never corruptedly enriched myself.

“In contrast, these are the allegations that I raised against Mr speaker and some members of the body of principal officers to which they have not responded to the allegations till date. So there is no reason to apologise to them. They know pretty well that I am not going to apologise to anybody in the house.

“But what is very important also is that now they have done their worst, they have suspended me, what has it changed? Has it changed the fact that the speaker conspired with other principal officers to divert N40 billion out of N100 billion meant for constituency projects.

“Has it changed the fact that he inserted fraudulent projects worth 20 billion? Has it changed the fact that he diverted multi-million naira project to his personal farm? Has it changed the fact that he tried to use the running cost – money meant for running the offices of members – for a questionable mortgage? Has it changed the fact that he diverted Federal Government of Nigeria’s project to his farm.

“Has it changed the fact that he and Alhassan Doguwa hijacked the 2015 MDG projects and everything there in and converted to their personal use? And many other criminal allegations that they committed, it hasn’t changed that.

“At this point, I must say they freed me up to concentrate on the matter in court, I know the suspension is not going to stand, secondly, I’m going into a massive alliance with civil society groups, NGOs and well meaning Nigerian to continue to press ahead. I have said it, not once, not twice that it is not going to be easy. I’m not worried about myself but I am more worried about people around me.

“I think this is a big issue, I’m fighting a group of mafia, I know what they can do. The battle I’m fighting is what Nigerians have always wanted to do in the last 16 years when democracy came to bare, to open the House of representatives and I’m determined to ensure that justice is served on Speaker Dogara and the corrupt body of principal officers and beyond that, reforms to be implemented so we can have a house Nigeria will be proud of,” he said.