Former chairman of the House committee on appropriations, Abdulmumin Jibrin, isn’t ready to back down from his allegations against Speaker Yakubu Dogara, even after entreaties to do so by his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), Ekekeee has been reliably informed.
In a letter signed by its Deputy National Chairman, North, Senator Lawal Shuaibu, the APC requested that Jibrin should “henceforth avoid issuing any public statement on this matter. This however, includes statements through social media or other means of transmitting an opinion on the matter to the public, as the party is now looking into it towards finding possible solution”.
It was a gag order from Nigeria’s governing party that may have worked, but only just. While Jibrin has stopped tweeting his allegations every other day and has cancelled all TV appearances in the main, the Kano born lawmaker has blatantly rejected the APC’s request that he should withdraw the allegations against Dogara just so the matter could be handled as a “family affair”.
APC leaders who met with Jibrin at the party’s secretariat in Abuja last week, had impressed on him to withdraw the allegations against Dogara because the media war he had instigated against the Speaker is causing the party plenty of embarrassment. “The party and indeed the government, have not been happy…we found it embarrassing to have to deal with another new phenomenon you tagged Budget Padding”, the APC had written to Jibrin.
It was a request Jibrin immediately baulked at during the meeting held away from the recording devices of journalists.
“Jibrin told the APC executives at the meeting that since Dogara and his acolytes are insisting that budget padding is no offence, the anti-graft agencies should be allowed to do their jobs based on the petitions he’s submitted to them. He told the APC that he’ll continue to pursue his case”, one APC executive who attended the meeting, relayed to Ekekeee in a text message last night.
Ekekeee also learned that the APC has been desperately working to thwart police investigation into the corruption allegations as leveled by Jibrin against Dogara.
The Police Special Investigation Panel had invited Dogara and Jibrin to appear before it last Friday, but neither of the lawmakers showed up.
“The APC is seeking for a political solution to the scandal. For a party that promised change during the campaigns, this move says everything”, one police officer on the panel who craved anonymity for this story, told Ekekeee over the phone, Saturday night.
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