I Am Not A Mud Wrestler – Yakubu Dogara

Yakubu Dogara, speaker of the House of Representatives has reacted to allegations bothering on budget padding leveled against him and three others by the immediate past chairman of committee on Appropriation, Abdulmumni Jibrin.

Jibrin, in a lengthy statement on Thursday, July 21,2016 called for the resignation of Speaker Dogara, his deputy, Yusuf Lasun, minority leader, Leo Ogor and Chief Whip, Ado Doguwa.

He accused Dogara and the other principal officers of illegally inserting and allocating projects worth over N30 billion to their constituencies in the 2016 budget.

“These members of the body of principal officers were not comfortable with my independent disposition and my refusal to cover up their unilateral decision to allocate to themselves N40 billion. The N40 billion is out of the N100 billion allocated to the entire National Assembly.

“The four of them met and took that decision in addition to billions of wasteful projects running over N20 billion they allocated to their constituencies. They must come out clean.

“My inability to admit into the budget almost N30 billion personal requests from Mr Speaker and the three other principal officers also became an issue,” Jibrin said.

Reacting to Jibrin’s allegation on Twitter, Speaker Dogara said: “I owe a word on the subject to my friends on this platform. The rest ll be dealt with by the Institution.

“He threatened the heavens will come down if he is removed nd we thought to ourselves it ll be fun watching it happen. We’re waiting for the heavens to come down first. That ll be a lifetime experience. Until that happens it’s all jokes. I won’t respond to joke. I m not a mud wrestler.”

Meanwhile, Abdulrazak Namdas, spokesman for the House has queried why Jibrin did not come forward with the allegations before he was relieved of his duty adding that he was bitter following his removal as the chairman of the Committee on Appropriation.