Two months of frenetic efforts to prod the House of Representatives leadership to come clean on the charge of budget padding levelled against it, ironically, ended up recently with a member, Abdulmumin Jibrin, the accuser, being suspended from legislative duties. He will be in the cold for 180 days, following a report submitted to the House by its Committee on Ethics and Privileges, asked to investigate Jibrin’s purported breach of members’ privileges.
The embattled lawmaker had shunned the committee’s summons, claiming that it was acting a pre-determined script. Chaired by Nicholas Ossai, the committee, in its report, described Jibrin’s action as injurious, scandalous and denigrating of the parliament. In case Ossai does not know, the House has been one of chronic scandals since 1999. Nothing could have been more disparaging or self-destructive than the chamber’s barefaced, bizarre bid to bury Jibrin’s allegations.
It chased shadows when it failed to investigate the weighty allegations he levelled against the Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, and three other principal officers of the House in preference for his suspension. This is sheer subterfuge, a surreal drama that hits at the heart of the anti-corruption crusade, transparency and good governance.
Its hatchery officially began with the Chairman, House Committee on Rules and Business Emmanuel Jev’s motion on the floor of the House to the effect that all the statements and publications credited to Jibrin on the saga amounted to a breach of privilege of the legislature and its members.
But Jibrin did not equivocate at all in his charge: that he was not against the entire House, but the Speaker; his deputy, Yusuf Lasun; Chief Whip, Alhassan Ado-Doguwa; and the Minority Leader, Leo Ogor. He had alleged that, out of the N100 billion provided for the parliament in the budget, these four principal officers allegedly conspired among themselves, while he played along then as the Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Appropriation, to allocate N40 billion for projects in their various constituencies.
Having served as the chair of Appropriation in the Seventh House and in the current dispensation until his removal, nobody can dismiss Jibrin as an ordinary lawmaker, or someone not in a vantage position to know the “dirty deals” that have become inexorable with budget consideration in the parliament. This is why he has pushed to the public space no fewer than 25 allegations of graft from his seemingly “corruption observatory.”
Undaunted by his ordeal, the Kano State-born lawmaker has threatened to make more shocking revelations. He recently alleged that members allocated to themselves N10 million in illegal allowances and requested that the money be returned to public coffers, amid these austere times. Indeed, if any value is to be attached to Jibrin’s suspension, it is the public odium it has provoked against the House and its leadership, and their dismissal as greedy, unproductive lot.
But where are the anti-graft agencies and President Muhammadu Buhari in all of this? Jibrin has forwarded dossiers of his allegations to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission, the Nigeria Police, State Security Service and the Presidential Advisory Committee on Corruption. However, it rankles that a seeming conspiracy of silence is prevailing. This is incredible and objectionable.
Buhari, who had returned the N6.06 trillion budget after it was passed to the lawmakers because of its inexplicably dodgy contents, for amendments to be made before he could assent to it, should break his silence on this matter now. If he fails, he would have laid the foundations for a Frankenstein monster in the years ahead.
Incredibly, the whistle-blower has become a victim. When this becomes a permanent nuance of the fight against corruption, it is capable of discouraging other Nigerians that might want to play a similar role. Yet, the ICPC Act 2000 encourages the public to volunteer information that could assist its investigation, while such informants are to be given all the protection the law could offer.
However, it is heartwarming that the embattled lawmaker has decided to test his suspension in court. This will help in enriching our jurisprudence on the legislative process in Nigeria. For too long, the lawmakers have abused this process; and quite often, misinterpret the provisions of Section 82 of the 1999 Constitution, which confer on them the power of appropriation, for that to mean the power to prepare budget estimates. This is a plain usurpation of the powers of the President as encapsulated in Section 81.
Though not by any means clean, going by his own confession, Jibrin’s predicament is an indictment on the civil society groups and the public for their apparent docility in the face of corruption’s savage assault on the public treasury. Since 1999, Nigerians have been fed with cocktails of financial scandals; complained to no end about lawmakers’ poor performance and the secrecy surrounding their remunerations, which no lawmaker, present or past, is prepared to divulge honestly.
A nation with a virile, civic engagement culture would have leveraged Jibrin’s illumination of this dark alley called the National Assembly to sing a redemptive song in accountability in public office.
