On Budget Padding: Dogara's plead for forgiveness rejected says Jibrin

Following allegation that some members of the House of Representatives are plotting to impeach the Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, over alleged padding of the 2016 budget, the embattled former Ap­propriation Committee Chairman, Hon. Abdul­mumin Jibrin yesterday said that the Speaker had on Monday begged the Northeast caucus members of the House for forgiveness over his role in the padding of the budget but his re­quest was rejected.

While briefing news­men after a brief ple­nary session, Jibrin re­vealed that lawmakers who were at the meet­ing told Dogara to beg Nigerians as the 360 members do not repre­sent themselves but Ni­gerians.
Jibrin contended that Dogara’s request at the caucus meeting that the issue be investigated in­ternally was not tenable, as the rule of the House stated otherwise, insist­ing that the Speaker should step down for proper investigation.
He said: “When a grievous allegation of this nature is raised, there is a laid down rules to investigate such issue, it should not be investigated internally. The Speaker should step down for proper investigation. Nobody is haunting him, but he should step down for a committee to do its work and investigate the issue.
“The Speaker begged us that we should forgive him. He also begged for the principal officers. He said that the House should forget what hap­pened in the 2016 bud­get. But Hon. Sani Zoro told the Speaker that the House will forgive him, but we have to accompa­ny him to beg Nigerians.
“When he was beg­ging, you could see the desperation on his face that he does not want to leave the seat. He love the position of Speaker so much.
“My question to him is,’’ did he connive with the principal officers to corner the N40 billion?
In reaction to Jibrin’s statement, the spokes­person of the House, Abddulrazak Namdas with 15 members of the Northwest caucus who spoke on behalf of the House, debunked Jibrin’s allegations saying that they were all false.
According to Namdas, the essence of the meet­ing which took place on Monday and presided over by the Speaker, was to deliberate on the way forward to address the current economic reces­sion.