Former Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, Abdulmumin Jibrin, has called on the Senate to pass a resolution which will empower it to discharge the functions of the National Assembly until the House of Representatives transparently addresses the allegations of budget padding levelled against the leadership and some members of the House.
Speaking in Abuja, the lawmaker said that the House has lost the moral ground to discharge its legislative functions as it has failed to address the allegations decisively.
Representative Jibrin also made it clear that he will not appear before the House ethics committee which is investigating him for breaching the privileges of the House.
“I have given sufficient reason, I am not going before any ethics committee. I have explained to you, the chairman of the ethics committee himself has made a lot of public statements…that there is nothing like padding and padding is not an offence.
“And he is the person who is going to pass a judgment on me,” he said.
The lawmaker displayed documents which he says backs up the allegations he has made against the Speaker and some members of the House.
He also called on the Senate to take a stand and insist that the allegations are addressed by the House of Representatives.
Meanwhile, the Chairman of the House Committee on Ethics and Privileges, Nicholas Ossai, has said that it will be in the interest of Jibrin to appear before the ethics committee.
Rep. Ossai said this when reacting to comments that Rep Jibrin may not appear before the committee, but noted that the committee was yet to receive any communication from the former chairman that he would not be appearing before the committee.
Rep. Ossai also made it clear that he was not biased and the committee would work impartially.
The House of Representatives Committee on Ethics and Privileges, on Friday commenced investigation into the alleged breach of privileges of the House by former Chairman of the House Committee on Finance, Representative Abdulmumin Jibrin.
The investigation followed a resolution by the House to probe the allegations of padding of the 2016 budget by some of its members.
The Chairman of the House Committee on Rules and Business, Rep Emmanuel Orker-Jev, who sponsored the motion, presented evidence of the reported statements where Rep Abdulmunin Jibrin had accused the House of corruption.
He explained that the allegations made had impinged on the image of the National Assembly and that he took the initiative to move the motion when other colleagues approached him regarding the same matter.
Abdulmumin Jibrin had given a condition that must be met for him to appear before the Ethics Committee to defend allegations of budget padding he made against principal officers of the House.
After the House referred him to the committee for investigation on Wednesday, following deliberations on a motion on the issue, the lawmaker in a statement said he would only obey the decision of the House “if the hearing will be public”.
