Obasanjo’s involvement in the ‘budget padding’ scandal

As controversies, accusation and counter-accusation continue to loom over padded budget, former President Olusegun Obasanjo had once again descended on lawmakers. Gift Sunday takes a look at the controversial budget saga.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo is at it again, this time, the 2016 budget described as the most controversial and incidentally the first to be presented by the All Progressives Congress (APC) government led by President Muhammadu Buhari gave him the opportunity to swoop on the federal lawmakers.

Since the budget was presented to the National Assembly, controversy has dogged it and this development gave room for the former President to descend hard on the legislature, describing the hallowed chamber as a cesspool of corruption.

On several occasions, Obasanjo had described the National Assembly as the den of robbers. As far back as 2012, the former President had at a public function declared that the two chambers of the federal legislature were full of “rogues and robbers.”

As if that was not enough, January this year, he wrote the National Assembly accusing the lawmakers of greed, impunity and corruption, and failing to show fiscal prudence in view of the present economic situation in the country.

On Monday, after a closed-door meeting with President Buhari at the Villa, Obasanjo, when cornered by journalists, emphasised his earlier position, insisting that it was important for the President not to allow the lawmakers get away with corruption.

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Obasanjo may have, however, been vindicated going by the present allegations rocking the lower chamber of the National Assembly, where can of worms are being opened by the very person, who should know better that the 2016 budget was padded by the leadership of the House, headed by Speaker Yakubu Dogara, to the tune of several billions of naira for personal aggrandisement.

The position of Obasanjo, has, however been criticised with the lawmakers threatening brimstone and fire.

Some of the lawmakers have, however, lambasted the former President, insisting that he should apologise for saying they are thieves and rogues.

The lawmakers have insisted that Obasanjo has no moral standing to describe them as rogues and thieves, alleging that the former President was the author of corruption in the sense that during his period as President he induced some of the lawmakers with several millions of naira to subvert the Constitution to suit his sinister purpose.

While the Chairman, Senate Committee on Culture and Tourism, Senator Mathew Urhoghide, in his reaction to Obasanjo’s accusation distanced himself from the allegation and said that the former President should tender unreserved apology for making such sweeping statement, Deputy Senate Leader, Senator Bala Ibn Na’Allah, dared Obasanjo to prove any single act of corruption against him.

Na’Allah, in a statement reminded Obasanjo that he rejected his, “N50 million inducement to subvert the Constitution and provide a constitutional framework for the third term ambition of the ex- president.”

The lawmaker, who said he was ready to vacate his office if any act of wrongdoing is found against him, described Obasanjo’s statement as reckless and terrifying, noting that, “the implication of the statement is to say that the entire over 170 million Nigerians have not elected a single person with integrity among the 469 members of the National Assembly.”

The mindset and allegation against the lawmakers by Obasanjo was not done in isolation, as the lawmakers, we are the ones who provided the firewood in which the former President is using to set the fire of allegations.

The accusations and counter-accusations among the leadership of the House of Representatives on how the 2016 budget was padded, provided a fertile ground for the former President to launch into their warehouse of dirty dealings.

From day one, the 2016 budget was enmeshed with controversy. It has been a subject of debate among the political watchers and analysts. The budget, which allegedly disappeared into thin air shortly after President Buhari submitted it before the joint session of National Assembly, later resurfaced with different tales from the upper and lower chambers.

However, seven months into the 2016, a different controversial chapter has been opened on the annual working document of the federal government, this time around, the sacked Chairman of House Committee on Appropriation, Abdulmumini Jibrin has opened a can of worm and like a canary has revealed the tune of music used to pad the budget, where several billions of naira were cornered by the lawmakers through constituency projects into their pocket.

While the fire of controversy raged, the lawmakers have been heaping blame on each other. Jibrin had specifically pointed accusing finger at the Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, Deputy Speaker, Yusuf Lasun, House Whip, Alhassan Doguwa and Minority Leader, Leo Ogor, as the quartet that should be held responsible for whatever padding that happened to the budget.

Jibrin, who exonerated other members of the House from the padding controversy, noted that during the cause of looking into the budget, the leaders of the House led by Dogara took the secretariat from him to a secret location where all manners of insertions were done to the budget.

“During the budget period, when they discovered that I was not the kind of a person they could use to perpetrate their illegality, Mr Speaker and the 3 other principal officers took away the entire Appropriation committee secretariat to a secret location where all sort of insertions were made into the budget.

“Again the secretariat was taken away from me on Speaker Dogara’s instruction for the second time to a location I don’t know and all sort of insertions into the budgets were made and returned to me for signature. I said over my dead body! It was a massive crisis behind the scene until the early morning of the Friday that Mr President assented the budget.

“When the budget harmonization committee headed by Deputy Speaker Yusuf Lasun gave out 80% concession across board to the executive demands during the harmonization negotiation, it was agreed that the remaining 20% should go to the entire NASS. The Deputy Speaker excused himself that he wanted to go and consult with Mr Speaker.

“He came back after few hours and in an unprecedented display of greed presented to me a hand written note distributing the remaining 20% to only principal officers. 70% of the 20% was reserved for Mr Speaker and himself while the remaining 30% of the 20% goes to other principal officers. I am sure he will recognize the hand writing when he sees it. My colleagues didn’t know all of these.

“Mr Speaker also directed me to create what I advised him will be a controversial line item under service wide vote to introduce about 20billion naira project using the name of NASS. He directed me to see a highly placed PDP politician which I did and collected the documents. I advised him repeatedly against it but he kept pressuring me until I bluntly told him I will not!

“When the Appropriation committee received all the budget reports from standing committees, an analysis was conducted. We discovered that about 10 only out of the 96 Standing Committees of the House introduced about 2,000 (two thousand) projects without the knowledge of their committee members amounting to about 284, 000, 000, 000 ( Two hundred and eighty four billion).

“I was alarmed. But I was cautious because at our pre budget meeting with the committee chairmen, I was clearly warned not to touch their budgets. I reported the matter to the speaker. He did nothing about it obviously because he was working behind the scene with the committee chairmen.

“That was the beginning of the whole budget problem from the side of House and the whole exercise had to go through several versions before it was passed. So, is it Abdul that introduced 2000 projects into budget worth 284billion?

“But I quietly bore the pain and abuses from all over the country and continue to defend the committee inputs as a show of loyalty to the institution I represent which I so much love and still have many great minds in there. Apart from Chairman Agriculture Hon Mongunu who owned up and explained his inputs at the only executive session I was allowed to attend, the other few chairmen who loaded the budget kept quiet and watched me bashed from every angle by angry Nigerians,” he said.

Jibrin, who urged the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to beam their search light on the role played by the Speaker and his activities in the 6th and 7th National Assembly, noted that Dogara had allegedly used different method to defraud the nation, including diverting millions of naira all in the name of paying for guest houses and their official residence and other sundry underhand deals.

With all the accusations and the exoneration, is the former Appropriation Chairman also guilty or free from whatever crime that was committed against the budget? His office has the responsibility of taking care of the budget for the lower chamber of the National Assembly.

Defending the leadership of the House while reacting to the allegations, the Chairman, House Committee on Media and Publicity, Hon. Abdulrazak Namdas, explained why Jibrin was removed.

Namdas said that Jibrin removal was based on sundry acts of misconduct, incompetence, total disregard for his colleagues and abuse of the budgetary process, among others.

Namdas further cited Immaturity, lack of capacity to handle Appropriations office, unfit to hold such a sensitive office which exposes him to high officials of government at all levels, lack of temperament and maturity required for such a high office, tendency and proclivity to blackmail colleagues and high government officials and misuse and mishandle sensitive government information as another reason.

The spokesman also said that the inflation of the budget to the tune of N250b more than the total figure as submitted by President Buhari, which the NASS leadership out rightly rejected as a form of financial recklessness and inability to appreciate the dwindling resources available to government was also part of Jibrin sin, that made the Speaker to remove him.

NAIJ.com, however gathered that Jibrin was not innocent of the alleged padding of the budget, which led to his removal.

Aside the inflation of the budget to the tune of N250b, it was gathered that Jibrin, allegedly inserted projects in the budget.

Details showed that Jibrin allegedly awarded, by himself, N100m for the construction and rehabilitation of work center at Kiru/Bebeji federal constituency; N100m for the construction of a town hall in Kiru/Bebeji federal constituency; N1.5 billion for the rehabilitation of Sharada–Kwanar Dogara in his constituency; N300m for solar street lights in same constituency; N20m for a drainage and N180m for Gwarzo Kiru rehabilitation.

Jubrin had also allegedly awarded N405m for the construction of Kiru–Badaf road in his constituency as well as inserting N150m for the rehabilitation and construction of roads in Kiru/Bebeji and another N200m for the constructions of a pedestrian bridge in the constituency.

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He also allegedly moved N10m for the construction of 10 hand pumps borehole in Bagauda; N100m for a small irrigation scheme in Kiru; N270m for the construction of Bebeji Earth Dam; N150m for the completions of various Small Earth Dam in Kano and another N150m for the construction of Solar Powered Borehole.

And also, awarded N100m for what he termed “Out Standing of Projects of 2014 in Kiru Bebeji”; while another N50m was moved for the construction of Bebeji Earth Dam; another N38,023,250 for the provisions of Hand Pumps Boreholes and water scheme; N200m for empowerment programme: Supply of Tricycle, Grading Machines and set of women saloon empowerment kits; N100m for the provisions of empowerment items; N100m for the provision of entrepreneurship development training and vocational center and N150m for the construction of rural roads in Kiru/Bebeji federal constituency.

This aggregates to a total of N4,319,023,250.00.

Reacting to the raging controversial budget padding, described as a shameful act, the Nigeria Youth Organization (NYO) led by its National President, Solomon Ikegwuru expressed disappointment over the budget saga.

NYO President, in a statement noted the spirited attempt by the leadership of the House to hoodwink Nigerians as usual to believe it is blackmail.

“Reading in-between the lines of the leadership’s defence, one can discover the tissue of lies. It is a sad commentary for our nation, that at time when we are going through very difficult times occasioned by bad governance and massive looting of public funds and the current administrations fight against corruption that our legislature will be occupied by people who are only interested in aggravating further the suffering of Nigerians,” it said.

The Youth told the House leadership to hide their heads in shame, urging the Attorney-General of the Federation, the Nigeria Police and EFCC to swing into action immediately and properly investigate this act of corruption.

The Youth pointed out that budget padding is a criminal offence punishable under the criminal code, adding, “budget padding is not a legislative act or an oversight function and therefore cannot be said to be covered by legislative immunity, therefore investigating the alleged perpetrators will not in any way violate legislative immunity. The National Assembly is not a crime-free zone in Nigeria.”

With these allegations and counter-allegations of corruption oozing out from the National Assembly, how hallowed is the chamber and how honourable are the lawmakers?

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