As EFCC investigates alleged budget padding
After months of suspense,the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) has commenced probe into the budget padding allegations leveled against the Speaker Yakubu Dogara and three other principal officers by his estranged associate Abdulmumini Jibrin. Sometime last year, Jibrin who was House Committee chairman at the time alleged that this quartet padded the 2016 budget to the tune of over N40 billion.
The others are the Deputy Speaker, Mr. Yusuf Lasun, the Chief Whip, Alhassan AdoDoguwa and the Minority Leader, Leo Ogor. He had also alleged that up to 10 committees of the House introduced projects worth about N284 billion into the budget.
The House suspended Jibrin, a member of the All Progressives Congress from Kano State, after its internal investigation submitted that he “abused” the rules of the legislative house by making the padding allegations.
In a letter dated June 9, but delivered to the suspended lawmaker on Monday, the anti-graft agency stated that it had opened an investigation into the matter. However, it noted that Jibrin’s presence was needed for the lawmaker to clarify the allegations.
Since his suspension last year, Jibrin had ran from pillar to post armed with documents to prove that Nigerians are being shortchanged by a group in the lower chamber of the National Assembly. This investigation is certainly a welcome development.
Regrettably, there are whispers that the recent budget signed into law by Acting President Yemi Osinbajo was padded. Minister Babatunde Fashola stridently denied one such allegation of N2billion in the Works and Housing ministry.
Even Jibrin has, again, alleged padding in this year’s budget. The fact that the anti-graft agency has started probe is an opportunity to prove whether or not the leaders of the National Assembly engaged in budget padding. Despite their outward grandstanding, budget padding, especially under the current leadership is fast becoming a norm. Posers raised by Jibrin in the past and even recently will have to be answered and convincingly too, before a very dissatisfied citizenry.
Jibrin may be sour grapes but his conviction in the massive padding of the budget is increasingly resonating each time the Lower Chamber is in the news. The suspended parliamentarian’s several missiles aimed at his erstwhile associate have largely remained unanswered.
At the renewed investigation, Jibrin feeling upbeat, expressed optimism that the anti-corruption agency would soon strike gold in its investigations. “I have maintained several times that I have full confidence in the EFCC under the chairmanship of Ibrahim Magu. One can only pray that the EFCC does a thorough job of sifting the chaff from the grain. One also prays the agency resists political pressure to discontinue the inquisition into this unending and yearly scandal.