Speaker, House of Reps Dogara Fires Back: Hon Jibrin padded 2016 budget with N250b

Speaker, House of Reps, Hon. Yakubu Dogara is set to fight back. In a new twist to the drama in the House, the Speaker's men have said that Abdulmumin Jibrin was sacked as Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation for padding the 2016 budget with N250m.

A senior member in the House and one of Dogara’s aides, claimed Jibrin was sacked by the Speaker because he had jerked up the budget by the said amount.

The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity to Punch, said Jibrin’s plan was discovered after he had tabled the final copy of the budget document for passage by the Senate and House of Reps.

They claimed it was the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, and Dogara, who blocked Jibrin’s move.

“The Senate President and the Speaker directed Jibrin to not only revert to original figure proposed by the President but also lower it by about N30b because of expected drop in revenue,” said a source.

“That was why the budget was not passed until the following Tuesday.”

But the fresh information contradicts claims by Jibrin in a statement released on Thursday that he was being victimised by the Speaker because he had objected to a request Dogara made that he (Jibrin) should allocate projects worth N40bn to him in the 2016 budget.

He had also alleged that the projects would have been shared among four principal officers, namely, Dogara; the Deputy Speaker, Mr. Yussuff Lasun; the Whip, Mr. Alhassan Ado-Doguwa; and the Minority Leader, Mr. Leo Ogor.

However, Dogara's men also accused Jibrin of allocating N4.1bn to his constituency – Kiru/Bebeji of Kano State. The source alleged that Jibrin tinkered with reports of standing committees on the budget by cutting 10 percent of all capital votes of all ministries, departments and agencies across board and also taking from personnel budgets of MDAs, making it difficult for them to pay workers’ salaries.