Reps recall Abdulmumin Jibrin after ‘budget padding’ scandal

The house of representatives has recalled Abdulmumin Jibrin, lawmaker representing Bebeji/Kiru constituency in Kano state.

This follows a letter of apology which Jibril wrote to the lawmakers on Tuesday.

The house suspended Jibril in 2017 for 180 legislative days after he raised an alarm of the alleged padding of the 2016 budget.

At the time of his suspension, the lawmaker, who was chairman of the appropriation committee, was also banned from holding any position in the house.

The letter of apology was announced during plenary by Yakubu Dogara, speaker of the house.

Although he did not read the content of the letter, the speaker said by implication, the lawmaker can resume “if he wishes”.

Jibril accused Dogara and other principal officers of the house of allegedly attempting to pad N30 billion projects into the budget.

He said his “inability to allow” the said projects into the budgets “became an issue” with the lawmakers.

He had also alleged that the speaker, deputy speaker, chief whip and minority leader had allocated “billions of wasteful projects running over 20 billion to their constituencies”.

A statement he issued at the time read: “Lately I openly disagreed with some principal officers on the issue of immunity for lawmakers and budget issues. I still maintained I will never support immunity.

“I strongly believe with every conviction that in cleaning up the budgeting system and considering what transpired during 2016 budget which I have all the facts documented, Speaker Dogara, Deputy Speaker Lasun, Whip Doguwa and minority Leader Leo Ogor should resign.

“My inability to admit into the budget almost 30 billion personal requests from Mr. Speaker and the 3 other principal officers also became an issue. I have every documented evidence to this effect.

“I gave Mr. Speaker statistics of 2000 new projects introduced into the budget by less than 10 committee chairmen without the knowledge of their committee members he did nothing about it because he was part of the mess yet he is talking about improving the budget system.

“I did nothing wrong. I worked within the rules of the House and instructions of Mr. Speaker.”