Dogara collects N25mn monthly, builds Abuja mansion in 6 months – Jibrin

Abdulmumin Jibrin, ousted chairman of House Committee on Appropriations on Sunday night released fresh allegations against Speaker Yakubu Dogara including the N25 million monthly allocation and source of funding the construction of mansion located at Wuse II, Abuja within six months.

Jibrin’s latest petition is coming four days after the ceasefire agreement brokered by Lawali Shuaibu, who chaired the APC’s National Working Committee, accused two incumbent Governors and three former lawmakers of blocking him from accessing President Muhammadu Buhari.

To this end, he solicited for audience 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, particularly Ambassador of the United States of America, High Commissioner of the 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 a thorough 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.

“Let me make further revelations here. In addition to the allegations I already made, the anti-corruption agencies should ask Speaker Dogara why on earth he collects 25 million naira every month just to spend it the way he wants.

“They should also ask him to provide proof of how he is funding his farm in Nasarawa State which was just few hectares six months ago and now miraculously expands to about 100 hectares with new buildings and state-of-the-art equipment worth millions as well as the mansion he has suddenly built in Wuse II within six months,” he alleged.

While giving update on the meeting held with the leadership of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Jibrin who noted that he agreed with peaceful resolution of the crisis “except on the criminal allegations I have raised against Speaker Dogara and 12 others.”

“As you are aware, that my party the APC has intervened in the current crisis, following allegations of corruption, embezzlement and gross abuse of office I leveled against Speaker Yakubu Dogara, three other principal officers and 9 other members, of which none had responded to any.

“As I said earlier, it is only the 13 members of the House that are on trial not the House of Representative as an institution. Surprisingly, they have resorted to using every tactics to narrow the allegations to only issue of padding, which in itself is a grievous offense, ignoring tens of other criminal allegations contained in my petition to the anti-corruption agencies,” Jibrin said.

While exonerating the Senate President Bukola Saraki and the entire Senate of any misdeed, Jibrin alleged that Dogara and his allies “mischievously expanded the scope of the culpability to give an impression that the entire House, Senate and even the Executive arm of government and some individuals outside NASS are on trial.

“This is a wicked attempt to drag many institutions and individuals into the matter to neutralize the issue, spread fear and sell the dummy that the entire country will go down if this matter is dealt with decisively. This is the biggest blackmail I have ever seen. Nigerians should know that the whole agenda of this blackmail is being coordinated by a group of five people, two serving Governors and three former members of the House. I will give their names in due course. They have been running pillar to post and I keep wondering what really do they have to hide or are afraid of since they are not Members of the House.

“The meeting with the party went very well and in all honesty they were very objective and showed understanding. I told the party that I will be part of any peaceful resolution except on the criminal allegations I have raised against Speaker Dogara and 12 others.

“On that, I told the party there is no going back and further informed them that more revelations will be made once investigation commences. I also informed the party that I will stand as witness against them and provide every support that will help investigation and prosecution of these 13 extremely corrupt members.

He maintained that ” it will be unfair to drag the Senate or senators into this matter. Everybody knows that it is the House that has commanding powers over appropriation. There is nothing in the Senate appropriation committee Secretariat, that is why I requested for the protection of only that of the House when I heard Dogara was planning to destroy the computers and the hardware. The Senate president was too busy then to even get involved. He was always receiving what I later realized was skeletal briefing from the Speaker.

“It is also a strong tradition of the National Assembly that in an event of disagreement between standing committee of the Senate and the House, that of the House supersedes. That was exactly what we did on 2016 budget except that of Health, where we adopted the report of the Senate because the chairman House Committee on Health practically converted the budget to his personal estate, moving massive amount of money that made the whole exercise looked like a big joke. I heard the chairman Hon Chike Okafor talking, trying to put defence on TV, and I simply said truly looters have no shame in Nigeria. The Minister of Health Prof Adewale is alive to testify and he knows the role I played to get the health budget, at least to an implementable shape,” Jibrin explained.

While reacting to Dogara’s interview at the State House, where he argued that padding is not an offence, Jibrin argued that the Speaker’s statement further confirmed the allegation leveled against him.

“He didn’t know that by that statement he has clearly confirmed my allegation that he and 3 others connived with some committee chairmen to insert into the budget over 2,000 items worth 284 billion naira. No wonder he refused to take action despite my complaint. Now that I have provided evidence that he and 3 others masterminded the insertion of 40 billion naira into the budget, another wasteful 20 billion naira and attempt to force me to insert another 30 billion naira into the budget,  padding is no longer an offense???!

“So the Speaker is saying the nine roads he inserted into the budget which he fraudulently sandwiched into 4 roads and inserted billions into that without any design or costing is not an offense? Or the water project he hijacked from the budget and took to his farm is not an offense? Or moving ten solar boreholes to a place that probably requires just two is not an offense? This has really proved that Speaker Dogara is the son, father, grand father and great grand father of padding! Nigerians are watching,” the statement read.