Reps: Jibrin inserted funds into film village budget without Buhari’s knowledge

The federal house of representatives has accused Abdulmumin Jibrin, former chairman of the appropriation committee, of corruption — same offence Jibrin accused Speaker Yakubu Dogara and three other principal officers of the chambers of.

Speaking at a press conference in Abuja, Abdulrazak Namadas, spokesman of the house, deaid Jibrin was himself involved in smuggling fake projects into the budget.

Namdas also described him as “immature and incompetent”, hence his removal.

Speaking on the reasons Jibrin was removed, Namadas said: “His removal was based on sundry acts of misconduct, incompetence, immaturity, total disregard for his colleagues and abuse of the budgetary process, among others.

“One of the fundamental reasons why the house leadership removed him is that he was found not to be fit and proper person to hold such a sensitive office, which exposes him to high officials of government at all levels.

“Furthermore, in the course of the performance of his duties as chairman of appropriations committee, it became evident that he does not possess the temperament and maturity required for such a high office.”

He also alleged that Jibrin has the “tendency and proclivity to blackmail colleagues and high government officials, and misuse and mishandle sensitive government information”.

“He was in the habit of collating, warehousing and manipulating sensitive information to blackmail people sometimes apparently for pecuniary purposes. And by virtue of his position as appropriation chairman, he usually met with very high and senior public officers at all levels,” Namadas continued.

“The speaker and the leadership were inundated with complaints by heads of ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) over harassment from the house appropriation chairman to engage in conduct and acts unbecoming of their offices.

“The leadership lunched an internal investigation into these allegations and was largely satisfied that action had to be taken to remove him, in the interest of the integrity of the house.

“One clear example is the insertion of funds for the so-called Muhammadu Buhari Film Village in his constituency in Kano without the consent or solicitation of Mr President. This has brought both Mr President and the government to disrepute.

“Again, it was found out that he was fond of inserting projects into prominent persons’ constituencies without their knowledge to curry favour and possibly use it as a means of blackmail against them when necessary.

“One of such is the numerous projects he claimed in a Channels TV interview in April 2016, to have cited in Mr President’s home town of Daura, Katsina state without Mr President’s solicitation or knowledge, in a desperate attempt to blackmail Mr President as an answer and justification for allocation of N4.1 billion to his constituency when confronted by the interviewer.

“He did not stop there. Hon Abdulmumin went about soliciting honourable members to nominate projects for him to help them include in the budget. When called upon to defend his actions as appropriation’s chairman, all he did was to be calling names of those members and the amount he helped include for them in the budget in an unsuccessful bid to silence them.

“Most of the affected members took serious exceptions to his despicable antics and sundry acts of blackmail and protested to the Leadership to prevail on Hon Abdulmumin to expunge from the budget what he claimed he allocated to them since they did not solicit for those projects.

“To attempt to drag the name of Mr President, honourable members and others to his new low through sundry acts of blackmail was one of the matters the house leadership found off limits and totally unacceptable.”