Business
House Of Representatives suspends Jibrin for 6-Months over budget padding unfolding scandal
The House of Representatives on Wednesday suspended Abdulmumin Jibrin, a lawmaker from Kano at the centre of the unfolding budget padding scandal, for 180 legislative days.
The House seats three days in a week and this consequently means that Mr. Jibrin’s suspension would last more than a year.
In a motion recommended by House Ethics Committee chairman, Nicholas Ossai, and adopted by the whole House, Mr. Jibrin will also not be able to hold any position of responsibility for the span of the current National Assembly.
Mr. Jibrin began stirring what experts now described as one Africa’s biggest parliamentary scandals in recent memory on July 21, a day after he was eased out as chairman of the powerful committee.
Although the House was taking a two-month recess at the time, Mr. Jibrin remained resolute in his quest to “end the massive corruption in the House.”
“My resolve to champion this cause was borne out of patriotism and desire to complement the present administration’s anti-corruption war from the legislative front,” Mr. Jibrin said in an email to PREMIUM TIMES on August 21.
Mr. Jibrin said the campaign had earned him “blackmail, propaganda and campaign of calumny” from Mr. Dogara, lawmakers loyal to him and their proxies.
The assault had been largely targeted at the Speaker of the House, Yakubu Dogara, and three other principal officers, whose resignation and prosecution he had continued to demand.
Mr. Dogara had announced the removal of Mr. Jibrin in a speech he read in plenary on July 20, alleging budget fraud and serial betrayal of trust.
To back his allegations against Mr. Dogara, Mr. Jibrin released damning documents to the media.
On July 30, the State Security Service sealed the secretariat of the Appropriation Committee in the National Assembly after Mr. Jibrin raised the alarm that Mr. Dogara had allegedly concluded plans to cart away computers and destroy evidence.
Mr. Jibrin also visited law enforcement agencies, including the EFCC, the SSS and the police, where he said he personally submitted petitions detailing evidence of fraudulent manipulation of budget by Mr. Dogara, his deputy Yusuf Lasun, House Whip, Alhassan Doguwa, Minority Leader, Leo Ogor, and nine others.
After several days of silence, Mr. Dogara succumbed to public demands for him to defend himself and came out with blistering statements denying all the charges against him.
Mr. Dogara took specific issue with the ‘budget padding’ catchphrase, saying it was a strange term to use when describing the actions of the legislature.
He also said lawmakers could not be probed by law enforcement agencies over any infractions in the National Assembly, but later walked back this statement.
At some point, the APC moved to contain the crisis, but its gag order lasted only a weekend.
Consequently, lawmakers began openly criticising Mr. Jibrin for allegedly defacing the National Assembly, dealing a major blow to his crusade.
Mr. Jibrin’s isolation became even more pronounced after 10 principal officers of the House released a statement backing Mr. Dogara and denouncing Mr. Jibrin. Amongst them was Femi Gbajabiamila, the Majority Leader who many thought would be reluctant to openly back Mr. Dogara.
The development sparked speculation that Mr. Jibrin would be suspended upon resumption of the House from recess.
The House resumed on September 20 and a lawmaker loyal to Mr. Dogara moved a motion the next day to have Mr. Jibrin probed for allegedly breaching the privileges of the members.
Emmanuel Orker-Jev, a lawmaker from Benue, proposed tough sanctions against Mr. Jibrin for the damage his allegations have allegedly wrought on the House.
“The image of the House has never been worse than this before. Hon. Jibrin was reckless and the allegations were false. He knew that the allegations were false and scandalous and he had no regards at all to whether the allegations were true or false,” Mr. Orker-Jev said.
The House subsequently assigned the matter to its Ethics and Privileges Committee for further investigation and to report back within a week with its findings and recommendations.
Mr. Ossai, chairman of the committee, convened the first hearing on the matter September 23, during which Mr. Orker-Jev submitted his allegations against Mr. Jibrin.
Mr. Jibrin received an invitation to appear before the committee on Monday. But decided to boycott the hearing, even though his demand that the sitting be thrown open to the public was met by Mr. Ossai. Mr. Jibrin also asked his lawyer, Femi Falana, to seek discontinuation of committee’s actvities in court.
Mr. Ossai said Mr. Jibrin’s failure to appear before his “properly and constitutionally constituted committee” was, in effect, a defence.
Mr. Jibrin had on Tuesday alleged subjudice saying the committee should not have sat since the matter was in court.
Mr. Jibrin’s suspension would see him banned from the premises of the National Assembly in the course of the disciplinary action. He would also not receive salaries or allowances.
Some sympathisers of Mr. Jibrin saw his suspension as partisan, draconian and counterproductive.
“This show of partisanship and support for Mr. Dogara is condemnable and too severe,” said a political analyst, Gbola Oba.
Mr. Oba said Mr. Jibrin had suffered the same fate as Dino Melaye who was suspended in 2010 for breach of members’ privilege. Mr. Melaye is now a senator representing Kogi West.
“We knew they would gang up against him as they did against Mr. Melaye,” Mr. Oba said. “This clearly shows that the House has failed to move beyond its counterproductive ways of suspending anyone who challenges the status quo.
“If the House were a serious body, serious attention would be given to Mr. Jibrin’s claim so as to foster a thriving democratic experiment within the country.”
– Premium Times
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Coalition of Civil Society for Good Governance, Others Are Purveyors of falsehood Says AAS Legal Team As Jesam Micheal Exposes Their Sponsors (Video)
Business
Afriq Arbitrage System Slams $10 million Lawsuit Against Micheal Okoh, Prince Humble Eteng, Hajj Ibrahim, Engineer Awajioma and Others (Video)
Afriq Arbitrage System Slams $10 million Lawsuit Against Micheal Okoh, Prince Humble Eteng, Hajj Ibrahim, Engineer Awajioma and Others (Video)
The board of directors of Afriq Arbitrage Systems after an emergency meeting condemned in strong terms the attitudes of Prince Humble Eteng, Michael Okoh, Okoi Daniels, Engineer Awajioma and others about their nefarious activities to injure the longstanding reputation the organisation has maintained and in a final resolution, resolved that the above parties be sued for defamation and has slammed a ten million dollar lawsuit with a suit number w/2011/2024 against them at the High court of the Federal capital territory in the Abuja judicial division on Monday, April 15th, 2024 on charges bothering on cyber bullying, attempt to life and property, lies and unlawful incitement and instigation against the CEO of the company , Jesam Micheal, his family and organisation.
In the lawsuit through the legal representation of Jesam Michael and AAS by Barrister Ovat the service required the defendants to appear In court within 14 days, else judgement will be issued against them in absentia.
It would be recalled that few days after series of cyber bullying against the CEO of Afriq Arbitrage System, Jesam Micheal and his Family by MICHEAL OKOH, PRINCE HUMBLE ETENG,OKOI DENOCK in collaboration with one TOCHUKWU NWOYE, DINGCHI YARLING, Godwin, Benjamin Uwanga and Findins, Jesam escaped assassination attempt as gunmen numbering over ten, armed with sophisticated weapons invaded his lounge in Lagos seeking for him.
Information available to us revealed that when the hardened criminals invaded the lounge on Friday, April 5th, 2024 where Jesam was billed to address his workers, they were demanding for him and when they learnt he couldn’t make the meeting as expected, they descended on the staff and customers threatening to kill them in his stead. They also went away with the company’s properties such as laptops, equipment and gadgets of staffers and customers.
Micheal Okoh who has been ranting on Social media against the CEO of Afriq Arbiritage System has been exposed along with Prince Humble Eteng, Okoi Denock as partners in crime with Abayomi oluwasesan who is in prison for defrauding the financial platform to the tune of $87 million dollars
According to reports, Micheal Okoh is an investor in AAS who has benefited from the scheme and has withdrawn over three thousand dollars which he never disclosed to his gullible followers until the evidence was uncovered and exposed to the community.
Aside from that, information revealed that Micheal Okoh, Prince Humble And Okoi Denock have been working in tandem with Abayomi in plotting the loot from AAS and threatening the life of Jesam Michael and his family. In a series of life threatening messages the plotters swear to eliminate him and his family for standing on the path of truth, justice and for arresting Abayomi in recovering the loot. Also, these revelations are not unconnected to the fact that these people engineered Abayomi not to return investors money back to the community.
However, the long arm of the law will soon reach them as Abayomi who has willingly confessed to the heinous crime he committed to the company is arrested and taken to court where he is Remanded and Micheal Okoh and his cohorts we learnt are also on the radar of the security operatives for collaboration and cyber bullying.
Sadly, the threat to life of the CEO and his family by these people should not be taken lightly as just as Mr Micheal Okoh said in his video that he will bring him down, same day, gunmen were sent to invade AAS lounge on the same day he was to address his workers for the year.
According to the security officer of the company, the ugly incident has never happened before on any of their investments until this brazen threats from Mr Okoh and others.
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