L
LequteMan
Guest
To admit it right away, I deserve no credit for the above headline. It is simply an adaptation of the title of Ola Rotimi’s hilarious play wherein a soldier named Lejoka-Brown took three wives. The first he married while fighting in the Congo, the second he inherited from his late elder brother in a strange but enduring African tradition while the third was an America returnee and daughter of an influential market woman he married because he was contesting for an elective office. The play centres on the series of crises that Lejoka-Brown has to contend with as his American wife forged allegiances with the other wives, teaching them to become independent in their thoughts and actions and literally prompting them to forsake the culture of absolute submission to their husband. The prevailing situation got Lejoka-Brown repeatedly worked up and prompted him to do crazy things.
Of course, the National Assembly is not a matrimonial setting. It is supposed to be a gathering of sane and mature minds; an assembly of reserved and right-thinking individuals representing the interests of their constituents. The least expected of them are rational and decorous acts that would hold them up as refreshing examples of statesmen and role models. Having elected them to represent their interests as senators and members of the House of Representatives, their constituents are supposed to go to sleep in the belief that their interests will be well protected by the individuals they have elected.
That, however, is far from being the case. The bulk of our national lawmakers appear to have been bitten by the bug of kleptomania. They have become so rapacious and jaded about their individual interests that they now think that their primary mandate is to loot the nation’s treasury.
After the piece I wrote on the Senate in this column a fortnight ago over the outrage that greeted the coarse invectives and obscene threats Kogi West senator, Dino Melaye, issued against his female counterpart from Lagos Central, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, during an executive session in the upper legislative chamber on July 12, I did not expect to revisit the goings on in the hallowed chambers of the National Assembly so soon. But events have dictated otherwise with the emerging roforofo between the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara and three other principal officials of the House on one hand, and the immediate past Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, Alhaji Abdulmumin Jibrin, on the other.
The sore point this time is the allegation and counter-allegation being traded between the two parties over alleged ‘padding’ of the 2016 Budget. The matter came to the open after a minor reshuffle carried out by the Speaker in the leadership of the House committees, which saw Jibrin losing his seat as the chair of the House Committee on Appropriation. Jibrin’s offence, according to the leadership of the House, was that he turned the appropriation business of the House in respect of the last budget into his private affair, sidelining other members of the House and allocating to his constituency 20 projects worth a whopping N4.3 billion.
But observers who thought there was nothing more to the move than public interest were soon jolted by Jibrin’s declaration that he was victimised by the leadership because he refused to pander to their demands for more money after the sum of N40 billion had been allocated to the leadership of the Appropriation Committees of the Senate and the House. Curiously, there is no dispute as to whether the nation was defrauded by members of the National Assembly in the 2016 Budget. What is in dispute is the mastermind of the heinous act between Dogara and Jibrin.
The ensuing face-off has culminated in more scandalous revelations by Jibrin who has also sworn to open more cans of worms, among which is his claim that 10 committee chairmen injected 2,000 fictitious projects worth N248 billion into the budget and the allegation that the Speaker diverted to his private farm in Nasarawa State a multi-billion naira project meant to serve the public elsewhere. Of course, Dogara has threatened to drag Jibrin to court for defaming his character if he fails to renounce the allegations and tender a public apology within seven days while the public waits with bated breath to see who blinks first between the two gladiators.
But the court option may not be the best for the image of the Speaker. In the circumstance, he has more at stake than Jibrin not only because he is Speaker but also because he has before now been touted as one of the most upright men in the National Assembly. The story is told of the wild jubilation embarked upon by one of the prominent Nigerian church leaders upon learning that Dogara had emerged the Speaker of the House of Representatives. The said church leader was said to have vouched for Dogara’s integrity, which he said would rub off on other members of the lower legislative chamber.
Depending on the slow and tedious judicial process of the nation to clear his name of the mess would certainly not be in Dogara’s best interest as there are insinuations in some quarters already that he has chosen the court option because he knows it is the best way to kill the matter. The wiser option would be that the Speaker steps aside for an independent investigation of the matter if only to disabuse the minds of people who believe that the desperation with which he plotted his way to become speaker against his party’s preferred candidate for some selfish agenda. The current state of affairs appears to have further vindicated President Muhammadu Buhari and the leadership of the All Progressive Congress’ choice of different candidates from the ones that plotted their ways to the leadership of the National Assembly.
We are now witnesses to open confession of sordid acts of corruption in the supposedly hallowed chambers of the National Assembly. Obviously, such huge sums have been cornered from the nation’s budget for decades, leaving one to wonder what the lawmakers involved have been doing with them.
Of course, the National Assembly is not a matrimonial setting. It is supposed to be a gathering of sane and mature minds; an assembly of reserved and right-thinking individuals representing the interests of their constituents. The least expected of them are rational and decorous acts that would hold them up as refreshing examples of statesmen and role models. Having elected them to represent their interests as senators and members of the House of Representatives, their constituents are supposed to go to sleep in the belief that their interests will be well protected by the individuals they have elected.
That, however, is far from being the case. The bulk of our national lawmakers appear to have been bitten by the bug of kleptomania. They have become so rapacious and jaded about their individual interests that they now think that their primary mandate is to loot the nation’s treasury.
After the piece I wrote on the Senate in this column a fortnight ago over the outrage that greeted the coarse invectives and obscene threats Kogi West senator, Dino Melaye, issued against his female counterpart from Lagos Central, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, during an executive session in the upper legislative chamber on July 12, I did not expect to revisit the goings on in the hallowed chambers of the National Assembly so soon. But events have dictated otherwise with the emerging roforofo between the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara and three other principal officials of the House on one hand, and the immediate past Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, Alhaji Abdulmumin Jibrin, on the other.
The sore point this time is the allegation and counter-allegation being traded between the two parties over alleged ‘padding’ of the 2016 Budget. The matter came to the open after a minor reshuffle carried out by the Speaker in the leadership of the House committees, which saw Jibrin losing his seat as the chair of the House Committee on Appropriation. Jibrin’s offence, according to the leadership of the House, was that he turned the appropriation business of the House in respect of the last budget into his private affair, sidelining other members of the House and allocating to his constituency 20 projects worth a whopping N4.3 billion.
But observers who thought there was nothing more to the move than public interest were soon jolted by Jibrin’s declaration that he was victimised by the leadership because he refused to pander to their demands for more money after the sum of N40 billion had been allocated to the leadership of the Appropriation Committees of the Senate and the House. Curiously, there is no dispute as to whether the nation was defrauded by members of the National Assembly in the 2016 Budget. What is in dispute is the mastermind of the heinous act between Dogara and Jibrin.
The ensuing face-off has culminated in more scandalous revelations by Jibrin who has also sworn to open more cans of worms, among which is his claim that 10 committee chairmen injected 2,000 fictitious projects worth N248 billion into the budget and the allegation that the Speaker diverted to his private farm in Nasarawa State a multi-billion naira project meant to serve the public elsewhere. Of course, Dogara has threatened to drag Jibrin to court for defaming his character if he fails to renounce the allegations and tender a public apology within seven days while the public waits with bated breath to see who blinks first between the two gladiators.
But the court option may not be the best for the image of the Speaker. In the circumstance, he has more at stake than Jibrin not only because he is Speaker but also because he has before now been touted as one of the most upright men in the National Assembly. The story is told of the wild jubilation embarked upon by one of the prominent Nigerian church leaders upon learning that Dogara had emerged the Speaker of the House of Representatives. The said church leader was said to have vouched for Dogara’s integrity, which he said would rub off on other members of the lower legislative chamber.
Depending on the slow and tedious judicial process of the nation to clear his name of the mess would certainly not be in Dogara’s best interest as there are insinuations in some quarters already that he has chosen the court option because he knows it is the best way to kill the matter. The wiser option would be that the Speaker steps aside for an independent investigation of the matter if only to disabuse the minds of people who believe that the desperation with which he plotted his way to become speaker against his party’s preferred candidate for some selfish agenda. The current state of affairs appears to have further vindicated President Muhammadu Buhari and the leadership of the All Progressive Congress’ choice of different candidates from the ones that plotted their ways to the leadership of the National Assembly.
We are now witnesses to open confession of sordid acts of corruption in the supposedly hallowed chambers of the National Assembly. Obviously, such huge sums have been cornered from the nation’s budget for decades, leaving one to wonder what the lawmakers involved have been doing with them.
