A pro-democracy Non-governmental organization- HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has lambasted the dismissed Federal House of Representatives Appropriation Committee Chairman Mr. Abdulmumin Jibrin and branded him an agent of destabilization working so hard to destroy a strategic institution of democracy – the National Assembly.
The group has also asked the constituents of Mr. Jibrin to begin a process of recall so they could elect a much composed and dedicated democrat who wouldn’t actively work with anti-democratic forces within the Executive branch of government to scuttle democracy by whittling down the respectability and viability of the National Assembly through consistent media campaign of calumny and demonisation.
In a press statement issued after a colloquium the Rights group held in Abuja with 26 affiliate partner organizations, endorsed by Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, the National Coordinator and Miss Zainab Yusuf, the National Media Affairs Director, the group carpeted Mr. Abdulmumin Jibrin for inviting the Directorate of State Services (DSS) which is an affiliate of the Executive Arm of government to invade the hallowed chambers of the National Assembly to illegally seal off an office of the Appropriation Committee in clear violations of the constitutional provision which spells out unambiguous safeguards guaranteeing the principle of separation of powers between all arms of government.
Excerpts from the media statement are as follows;
“We (Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria) are worried by the recent developments in the once calm and peaceful House of Representatives headed by a constitutional lawyer Mr. Yakubu Dogara. We are specifically bothered by the sudden eruption of politically instigated controversy surrounding the 2016 Appropriation bill which has for long been passed by the National Assembly and signed into law of the National Assembly of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“We are aware that this same budget as we were told was heavily padded by the officials working in the Budget office of the Executive Arm of government for which the media reported that some Directors were reassigned to other less juicy places but no single officials of the Federal government was prosecuted or sanctioned since by law they ought not to criminally tamper with the proposed Appropriation Budget okayed and submitted by Mr. President.
“Even President Muhammadu Buhari who was on series of globetrotting activities then was quoted as telling his audience that those who padded the budget in the Federal Cabinet of the Federation would be dealt with but as we are already notoriously getting used to our business-as-usual tendency, the matter quietened down but this same matter has been resurrected by the dismissed chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation Mr. Abdulmumin Jibrin.
“This man, for the many months that the controversy over the theft of the original deposit of the copy of the then proposed federal budget lasted, actively defended the integrity and innocence of the House of Representatives. But as soon as misfortune smiled on him with his dropping from the juicy position, he then started singing like an ‘ecstatic canary bird that just swallowed some ecstatic substances’.
“This character rather than submit himself for investigation ab initio or say what role anyone of his committee member or the larger house played if any in influencing suspected padding of the proposed budget was the most vociferous defender of the house but his eventual dethronement from hierarchy of the Federal House of Representatives is now the motivating factor for him to suddenly rebrand himself into the ‘public defender’ of the ‘truth’ and by so doing he has made nonsense of his public standing in the eyes of critical members of the public.
“He is lucky that we live in an epoch whereby the gullibility of most consumers of popular media contents has impeded any critical inquisitions or inquiry of any allegations published in the media like other people do in advanced democracies. In developed societies, decent people would have by now dismissed him as a drowning man who wants to collapse and sink with whatever his hands desperately hold on to but alas in the local media in Nigeria such soft tissues of uninvestigated claims are made page one story. Gentlemen, as media stakeholders we in HURIWA and our 26 other affiliates are disturbed about the ethical deterioration of the editorial foundations of the Nigerian Media.”
“The media should have asked Mr. Abdulmumin Jibrin whether he was the same character associated with infamous anti democratic gambit of ‘Million Man March’ for the then maximum military despot to transmute into life President which was disingenuously called YOUTH ERNEST ASK FOR ABACHA’ (YEAA). Was that Abdulmumin Jibrin allegedly linked with that infamous anti-democratic gambit for Abacha his twin brother or is it another case of identity theft and/0r mistaken identity?
“Gentlemen this Abdulmumin Jibrin instigated ‘crisis’ is fraught with several layers of fault lines and political innuendos. The entire political drama is becoming curiouser because it coincided with the most curious season whereby conspiracy theories are swirling around the necks of Presidency officials suspected of funding subterranean plots to ‘overthrow’ the properly constituted hierarchy in the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria with the recent infamous ‘Nicodemus’ type of visits to the President by former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the All Progressives Congress governors curiously known as ‘progressive’ governors forum headed by the most incompetent governor ever in Nigeria’s history Rochas Okorocha.
“Retired military General Olusegun Obasanjo emerged from his surprise meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari only to cast aspersions on the integrity of a very strategic institution of democracy–the National Assembly–by his blanket accusations that virtually all the elected representatives of the Nigerian people are rogue elements.
“Obasanjo it was who unsuccessfully sought to subvert the Constitution through contrived amendments to railroad him into self perpetuation as life President. Curiously, Obasanjo told journalists in the State house that as a ‘messenger’, he was in the villa to deliver a message to Mr. President. The same period coincided with the meeting of Mr. President with the APC governors who reportedly went away with N2 Billion each to wage internecine battle to overthrow the constituted leadership of the Red chamber of the National Assembly because as they carelessly stated, the National Assembly is not cooperating with President Muhammadu Buhari.
“The story that was circulated concerning the N2 billion was that it was meant to balance the equilibrium since the immediate past PDP produced President Goodluck Jonathan dashed the same amount to some (not all) PDP governors who were servile to his ambition but left out APC Governors and some other PDP governors considered antagonistic to him (Jonathan). But in the Naira rain in Aso Rock, only APC governors participated in the bonanza but the other disaffected PDP governors who were reportedly left out by Jonathan were not mentioned.
“The leader of the APC governors forum who met Mr. President nevertheless stated in black and white that the Deputy Senate President is in their radar for removal from his coveted seat so the only APC Senator just ‘procured’ through an ethically challenged electoral process can take over. What kind of legacy are we passing on to our children?
“Do we want them to believe that governors can gang up and receive bribe to instigate the illegal and financially induced overthrows of a democratically constructed leadership of an arm of government?
“Then there is this APC senator in Bauchi who was recently attacked by hired protesters who alleged that he was disloyal to Bauchi State governor and President Muhammadu Buhari. The man, apparently unable to withstand the heat in the kitchen, has surrendered his suspected loyalty to the Senate Leadership in preference for his newly professed total loyalty to the change mantra of Mr. President.
“All these plus the vociferous effort of Abdulmumin Jibrin to destabilize the House leadership points to well choreographed plots by reactionary anti democratic forces within the seat of power to psychologically and through contrived subterfuge pummel the National Assembly leadership into submission so that full dictatorship can take root in Nigeria. The popular view on social media is that the wings of both the civil society community and judiciary have been clipped.
“In the case of the Judiciary, the EFCC has never pretended that it has been detailed to harass and intimidate the judges into rendering pro-government rulings some of which are so outrageous that most decent minds are genuinely afraid that Nigeria’s democracy may be imperiled. Mr. President should speak to Nigerians and clear the fog of suspicion that he is using law enforcement agencies under his control to harass and intimidate his opponents and to emasculate the other two arms of government.
“Our question is whether Abdulmumin Jibrin is beaten by the bugs of abachaism which in summary is a perpetual inclination to avail his services to undermine democracy? The way and manner he has executed this formidable and well funded campaign of calumny against the House leadership shows some hidden agenda.
“For the fact that he has started romantically inviting the DSS, an agency currently accused of being notorious for servile attachment to President Muhammadu Buhari’s political agenda, tells that there’s more to it than meets the eye. We stand to be corrected, he has engaged some communication marketers and it is not certainly a small budget fight.
“During a visit to UK by our National Coordinator, one of Abdulmumin Jibrin’s communication marketers made overtures to have our sister online newspaper to run his outrageous allegations against the Speaker but our team together with our London Bureau asked him to pay for the publication after our in-house vetting as advertisement but the bill couldn’t be agreed as the person on the other end of the phone sent us a text in response to ours that his budget can’t accommodate the bill our online newspaper billed him.
“Gentlemen this drama by Abdulmumin Jibrin is being sponsored to destabilize democracy and all lovers of democracy must speak out. The understanding of the powers of the National Assembly seems to say that the Legislature is constitutionally empowered to vet proposed budget since these elected officials aren’t rubber-stamps of Mr. President.
“For Femi Falana who has fully taken up the gauntlet to always support the brazen illegality of the current Federal government to say that the lawmakers can reduce but can’t increase budget sub-heads as proposed is disingenuous and is as good as saying that a husband can only impregnate his wife but can’t pay the bills of caring for the offspring. We endorse the explanation by the Senate Leader who said the constitution permits the legislators to tinker and work on the propose or indeed any proposed budget or legislative bills. By the way, what is the work of the law makers as it relates to budget making?
“It is disingenuous therefore for the Sacked Appropriation Committee Chair, Abdulmumin Jibrin to make any claims of exposing Massive Corruption In House of Reps, Accuse Speaker Yakubu Dogara of Moves to Personally Smuggle N30bn into 2016 Budget as tendentiously and sensationally reported by a section of the media even without subjecting these baseless allegations to critical scrutiny.
“The former chairman of the House of Representatives committee on appropraiations, Mr. Jibrin, a former ally of the speaker, Yakubu Dogara, had said that he chose to step down for personal reasons.
“Hear him “Lately I openly disagreed with some principal officers on the issue of immunity for Lawmakers and budget issues. I still maintain that I will never support immunity. I strongly believe with every conviction that in cleaning up the budgeting system and considering what transpired during 2016 budget which I have all the facts documented, Speaker Dogara, Deputy Speaker Lasun, Whip Doguwa and minority Leader Leo Ogor should resign”.
“The House leadership is competent enough to defend itself and it has done just that when the spokesperson stated thus; “We wish to say that it is the prerogative of the Selection Committee of the House to appoint and remove Committee Chairmen. That power has been so exercised in the case of Hon. Abdulmumin Jibrin as chairman of Appropriation Committee.
“Most of the allegations on the 2016 budget process and his opposition to immunity of Presiding officers are non-issues and mere afterthought manufactured simply because the House relieved him of his position.””
“Our take on Mr. Abdulmumin Jibril’s bogus argument that the ‘desperate’ advocates for immunity clause for National Assembly leadership in the ongoing constitutional amendment was an effort to conceal the so-called padding of the budget is to say that he must not take all Nigerians to be intellectually weak as not to remember that this issue of parliamentary immunity had featured prominently and had been defeated in previous constitution amendment processes over the last 16 years.
“By the way, why do we have section 308 (1) which confers immunity to some persons in the executive arm and Abdul Jibrin the new “pro-transparency” campaigner sees nothing wrong but has cheaply held on to the inclusion move currently by the National Assembly for immunity clause as his life-line for selling his poorly manufactured propaganda?”
The PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS of HURIWA who issued this statement are;CAMPAIGN FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND JUSTICE; PROMOTERS OF FREE SPEECH; ADVOCATES UNITED FOR PEACE; SOCIAL JUSTICE MEDIA FORUM; FORUM FOR THE PROMOTION OF CHILD RIGHTS; THE ELDERS COUNCIL FOR HUMAN RIGHTS; COMMITTEE UNITED FOR HUMAN PROGRESS; FORUM FOR HUMAN RIGHTS PROMOTION; MASS MOVEMENT FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE AND ETHICAL REFORMS; FRIENDS FOR TRANSPARENCY (FT); INITIATIVE FOR A BETTER SOCIETY; GREEN ENVIRONMENT INC; ASSOCIATION OF AFRICAN WRITERS ON HUMAN AND PEOPLES RIGHTS (AFRIRIGHTS); ORGANIZATION FOR ETHICAL REORIENTATION; CAMPAIGN FOR TRANSPARENCY; YOUTH EMPOWERMENT INITIATIVE FOR ACCOUNTABILITY; GOOD GOVERNANCE SOCIAL INITIATIVE; COMMUNITY CAMPAIGN FOR LIBERAL EDUCATION; RESTORATION OF HISTORY GROUP; YOUTH UNITED FOR ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND FAIRNESS; YOUTH ADVOCACY AND EMPOWERMENT CENTER INITIATIVE; YOUNG CITIZENS DEMOCRATIC FORUM; INITIATIVE FOR PROTECTION OF THE INDIGENT; CENTER FOR PROTECTION OF THE ELDERLY; GOOD GOVERNANCE AND DEMOCRACY AGENDA; HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGNERS FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT.