Budget padding: Dogara lands trouble with police
– The acting inspector-general of police (IGP) Ibrahim Idris has raised a five-man special team to probe the budget padding accusations leveled the speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara and other principal officials
– Dogara, his deputy Yusuff Lasun, chief whip Alhassan Ado Doguwa and minority leader Leo Ogor, have been invited to appear before a police panel on Friday, August 6
– Ibrahim Idris has directed the police panel to conduct a comprehensive investigation into Jibrin’s petition against Dogara
Yakubu Dogara and some of his principal officers of the House of Representatives are accused of padding the budget with N284 billion.
The Nigerian Police has begun a probe of the alleged budget padding by the speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara and some of his principal officers.
READ ALSO: Budget padding: Why I was summoned by APC – Jibrin
The Nation reports that the acting inspector-general of police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris, has raised a five-man special team to probe the alleged budget padding scandal.
Yakubu Dogara, his deputy Yusuff Lasun, chief whip Alhassan Ado Doguwa and minority leader, Leo Ogor, have been invited to appear before the assistant inspector-general of police (AIG) Amodu Ali-led special investigative panel (SIP) on Friday, August 6.
The follows a preliminary session the panel had on Tuesday, August 2, with the ousted House committee on appropriations chairman, Abdulmumin Jibrin, who accused Dogara and others of padding the budget with N284 billion.
A highly-placed police source, who spoke in confidence, told The Nation that the inspector general of police has directed the special investigative panel to conduct a comprehensive investigation into Jibrin’s petition.
READ ALSO: Jibrin accuses Dogara of trying to kidnap him
The source said: “We have commenced full investigation into the N284billion budget padding in the House of Representatives based on a petition from Hon. Jibrin.
”A Special Investigative Panel (SIP), with a crack detective, AIG Amodu Ali as the chairman, is the one saddled with the responsibility of looking into the allegations in the petition. The same Ali uncovered the lid on the $620,000 bribery scam in the House for which a former Chairman of the House Committee on Fuel Subsidy Management, Mallam Farouk Lawan, and the Clerk of the committee, Mr. Boniface Emenalo were indicted. The case is in court.
“You will recall that Ali was deeply involved in the investigation of the $180million Halliburton scam. So, the SIP is led by an officer who is tested.”
The source also disclosed that a letter of invitation has been addressed and sent to the speaker, the deputy speaker, the chief whip and the minority leader.
He said: “They will be interrogated by the SIP on Friday. As a prelude to the invitation of the principal officers, the SIP chairman and members had a session with Jibrin on Tuesday.
“It was not a grilling session. But Jibrin furnished the team with vital information and a heap of documents to back up the petition he submitted on Monday.
“We are going into the merit or otherwise of the petition on Friday by inviting Dogara and three others. It is going to be a gradual thing but we will crack the padding controversy.”
Meanwhile, following the budget padding scandal that is rocking House of Representatives, leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) on Tuesday, August 2, met with the former chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Abdulmumin Jibrin, at the party’s secretariat in Abuja.
The party had said that it sent an invitation letter because Jibrin deliberately made himself inaccessible by phone.
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