Hon. Abdulmumin Jibrin, former Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, may not be an angel, he may not even be squeaky clean, but his words, statements, and accusations have a ring of truth.  On Channels TV, he was the first member of the National Assembly ever to look into the camera and admit “yes, we (National Assembly members) are corrupt…there is corruption in the House of Representatives, and not only is there corruption, there is institutional corruption.”
“These are things that I can prove and it is what my struggle is about…the only thing is that we have been living in denial.  I have been there for five years and I have seen a lot and I’m happy something has triggered it (this budget padding scandal) … to address the issues at the National Assembly to force reforms…The issue is going to lead to a revolution in the National Assembly…”
“My problem was that I was not talking.  I came to the National Assembly and I was made to understand believe that when one is chairman of finance (committee) you have to live and die with certain information.  Also, if you are chairman of Appropriation (Committee), you have to be custodian of information, meaning there are a lot of things you must not say.”
Any close observer of the National Assembly as an institution would see that, without prejudice to whatever his past records might have been, Abdulmumin Jibrin is a gift.  Having watched National Assembly members lie through their teeth on many issues, especially when it concerns their earnings, work ethics and service, Jibrin is a breath of fresh air.
He was unequivocal when calling on the House leadership to resign.  The Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, the Deputy Speaker, Yusuf Lasun, the House Whip, Alhassan Doguwa, and the Minority Leader, PDP’s Leo Ogor, he stated, had unilaterally appropriated to themselves N40 billion of the N100 billion allocated to the entire National Assembly for constituency projects, in addition to other corrupt practices which found themselves into the budget.  “The four of them met and took that decision, in addition to billions of wasteful projects running to over N20 billion they allocated to their constituencies..My inability to admit into the budget almost N30 billion personal requests from Mr. Speaker and the other principal officers also became an issue.”
.He extended his accusations to the chairmen of the 10 standing committees of the House who inserted 2,000 projects into the budget with the Speaker’s complicity.  He named those chairmen in his letter to the Chairman of the APC, a letter in which he exhibited a level of courage not seen since Godwin Daboh or Chief Gani Fawehinmi in standing up against corruption and evil.
Jibrin seems to understand the difficult position which the National Assembly has placed the country and its democracy through its repeated corruption.  He seems to want to lead the charge to cleanse the Augean stable:  “When a new speaker emerges and the other principal officers replaced, I will write to the presiding officers of both chambers to commence a radical internal reform in the entire National Assembly beyond budget to cover performance assessment, running costs, allowances, investigations, etc.”
“If the reform so done on the National Assembly is not made public latest by December, I will take it up and lay before the general public even if I am alone.  The idea is to do a cleanup, flush out corruption and corrupt members so that in 2019 only corrupt-free people who want to serve will come in.”  Millions of Nigerians are praying for his success in the endeavour because until Nigeria’s legislature becomes a real legislature not just a money-making machine for its members, Nigeria’s democracy will remain perilous and uncertain.
It is no surprise that the National Assembly is piling on him.  The leadership has drawn a line on the sand and is primed to destroy him.  They tried to scare him by giving him seven-day ultimatum to retract the allegations he made against them.  In response, he actually made more.  He pointed to the Speaker’s farm and the Federal Government water project the Speaker had diverted into his personal farm. They tried to hush him.  He refused to shut up.  They are now dredging up accusations dating many years back, grasping on anything which might rope him in.
When the APC machinery swung into action, Jibrin penned to Party Chairman John Oregon one of the most powerful letters I have read in recent times in which he so respectfully apologized for his serving as the linchpin of the campaign to get Yakubu Dogara elected Speaker of the House, against the wish and desire of the Party, and how he soon found that the man was a “green snake in green grass.”  He labored to show why the Party should be on his side, even if for ideological reasons.  And he buttressed his argument with facts.
The House leadership is counting on its traditional, time-honoured method to whip people like Jibrin into line.  The difference is that the National Assembly has never had a rebel like Jibrin.  He seems not obsessed with making money like the rest of them.  He is not afraid of those powerful people he is accusing and his sights are set on cleaning the National Assembly.
The tragedy is he is not getting any help.  The House will try to shut him out, demonize and isolate him.  Indeed, one newspaper used the word “pariah” to describe him last week to illustrate how lonely his position has been.  The so-called “Transparency Caucus” does not seem to exist after it reportedly rejected an attempt to bribe it by the other side.  The leadership has pulled together but it has yet to find answers to Jubrin’s posers and accusations.  Dogara’s assertion that “padding is no offence” has been repudiated.
The biggest worry remains the fact that corruption is systemic in the National Assembly. It is like a terminal disease.  It cannot be cured.  Even if the leadership of the house resigned, there is no guarantee that anything would change unless Nigerians would mount enough pressure to change the form and context of the service.  Even former President Ibrahim Babangida is weighing in and suggesting that a part-time legislature and possibly a single chamber one would go a long way in transforming the National Assembly.  Without it, it does not matter what happens in the war against corruption, the National Assembly will remain a citadel of shady deals and shady individuals.

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