Abdulmumin: Obasanjo was Right about Corruption in N/Assembly

• Alleges N500bn stolen as running costs since 2006

By Damilola Oyedele in Abuja

The former Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriation, Abdulmumin Jibril has said former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s statement on corruption in the National Assembly was right, adding that the positions he has held as Chairman of Appropriation and Finance committees, put him in position to know that the statements are true.

This is as he alleged that about N500 billion had been diverted into private pockets by lawmakers as running costs out of a total of about N1 trillion budgetary allocations to the legislature since 2006.

He also challenged members of the National Assembly to publicly disclose their monthly running costs, while standing by earlier statements that they received N10 million monthly, most of which are diverted into their pockets.

Obasanjo, at a lecture during the week, had accused the lawmakers of corruption and budget padding, allegations which were refuted yesterday by the spokesman of the House, Abdulrazak Namdas.

Abdulmumim, who is currently on suspension for 180 legislative days following his tirade of budget padding allegations against Speaker Yakubu Dogara and others, commended Obasanjo for his statements on the legislature.

In a statement he issued friday, the suspended lawmaker said Namdas did not address the issues raised by the former president.

“All the anti-graft agencies need to do is to go and investigate only the 2015 SDG projects where about N10 billion was budgeted and see where that will lead them. It has remained a huge scandal in the House but nobody will talk because it is a system of “chop clean mouth”,” he said.

The lawmaker, who is currently on self-pimposed exile in London disagreed that the budgetary allocation to the legislature was insufficient, adding that more than half of it is stolen through a fraudulent system designed by Dogara, while he was Chairman of House Services in the sixth Assembly.