Between Dogara and Jibrin by Wale Fatade

It is now clear that President Muhammadu Buhari’s war on corruption has more enemies within the All Progressives Congress (APC) than outside. This is the more reason why the party should get its acts together and reposition for better governance. The farce ongoing at the House of Representatives is another cause for worry and it confirms what some commentators said when the story of budget padding broke early this year that its denouement was far. And that’s why we should encourage the gladiators to talk the more and hopefully commit class suicide in the process.

The outburst of Abdulmumin Jibrin, the representative of Kini/Bebeji federal constituency of Kano State, until recently the House of Representatives appropriation committee chairman, should be a good thing for our democracy. Not that it shows the nearly 40 year old as a person of integrity, but that it offers us a window into what some of us have always suspected but which we could not prove. A man who held so much promise and with a doctorate in international relations, has, sadly, demonstrated that quite a sizable number of our national assembly members do not know the reasons why they were elected. Reading through his account of what allegedly transpired during the 2016 appropriation exercise at the House of Representatives is further proof that majority of the members are not there to serve their constituents.

Jibrin was first elected to the house in 2011 and he was among those at the forefront to elect Yakubu Dogara, 48, as speaker against the wishes of the party under which they were both elected. I wrote about the stench of death oozing out of APC last week, so no need of repeating it, but we are witnessing the aftershock of a rudderless party in the national assembly. It was an email from a PR agency working for Jibrin that first alerted me to the show of shame last Thursday. By then, twitter was already on fire literally as tweets from Jibrin tried to state his own side of the story and thereby take hold of the narrative from Dogara and his cohort. When our legislators could not agree on a simple matter of whether someone resigned or was removed, how could they agree on what actually happened?

Sometimes one oscillates between sympathy and annoyance at our president’s interactions with the national assembly. A party with the majority in both chambers seemingly at war with itself than with poverty, corruption or the opposition and thereby erecting obstacles on its delivery to Nigerians. Expectedly and true to type, as I write this, the party has not said anything about the sordid drama between its arrowheads in the House of Representatives. There are other dramatis personae in the drama as well: the deputy speaker, house whip, and minority whip despite attempts at framing this as a political battle between Jibrin and the House. It is a battle between the leaders who have forgotten that there should be honour among thieves. With their relationship gone sour, one is spilling the beans not minding whether the house collapses on their heads.

Funny that Yusuf Lasun, the deputy speaker from Irepodun/Olorunda/Orolu/Osogbo federal constituency of Osun State who holds his candidature to a general amnesty brokered by Governor Rauf Aregbesola for all representatives in the state who served between 2011 and 2015 could still engage in budget padding just as Alhassan Doguwa of Tudun-Wada/Doguwa of Kano State, the house whip. Leo Ogor, Isoko, Delta State and a PDP member complete the quartet that Jibrin alleged moved money from the house constituency projects to projects in their constituencies. Again, when it involves corruption, party affiliation does not matter. We should all condemn Jibrin’s foolishness at least for playing along till now, but using policemen and security forces to harass him from revealing more should be condemned. Let him continue speaking so that we can know those against our progress as a nation. The house leaders cannot be judges in their own case too just as the house itself appears compromised enough that we cannot expect fair judgment on this matter.

My fear is that like other previous scandals in the house, the best we might get will be one or two resignations without any criminal prosecution. Does anyone remember Farouk Lawan’s case today? APC is not strong enough to call its members to order and the rot continues. By the way, how come journalists reporting the house activities did not discover this until Jibrin started singing like a canary? All of us must join the battle against corruption if we want to move ahead. And for Jibrin, he should remember that a fool at 40 is a fool forever.