These Dishonorable "Honourables" Must Resign Immediately

By Senior Cadre

The Save Nigeria Anti-Corruption Initiative (SNAI) wishes to condemn in strong term, the fraud and manipulations, that the Nigeria 2016 Appropriation bill was subjected to in the National Assembly in the course of its passage, particularly the role of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Honorable Yakubu Dogara and his accomplice, Hon. Abdulmumin Jibril who is the Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation.

Going by the recent revelations, there is no doubt that Speaker Dogara, actively collaborated with Hon. Jibrin, whose Committee was majorly responsible for the entire process owning to the complacent nature of the Chairman and members of the same Committee at the upper chamber of the National Assembly, the Senate.

It should be noted that the Nigerian House of Representatives and some elements in it have continued to abuse their various positions, in justifying the persoanlization of the resources of the Nigerian State,particularly those that are meant to provide meaningful interventions to uplift their living condition, such as the Lagos-Calabar rail line project.

It is saddening that members of the House of Repsentatives are now blaming the Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, Abdulmumin Jibrin for tampering with the budget, which is in tandem with our Independent investigation which shows, that most of the projects used in altering the content of the 2016 Budget were those in the constituency's of Honourable Jibril, Speaker Dogara and their accomplices.

Beyond the intuition that says "I know one when I see one," how do you go about measuring the effectiveness of any given legislature if not in the circumstance like this. That is simple legislative appropriation scrutiny and approval?

What do we want our legislatures of the 21st century to be? Of course we want them to be effective and good. The challenge is to remain true to the fundamental purposes of representative democracy and the legislative system.

The bottom line is that some honorables are decent, hard-working people. No, really. We are all justified in feeling angry about those that have fallen short of the high standards expected of those in public life. The conduct of some politicians has been, quite simply, a disgrace. A few may well be guilty of criminal offences and should feel the same force of the law that would be felt by, say, a benefit cheat.

Speaker Dogara and Hon. Abdulmumin Jibrin have already been found guilty in the court of public opinion.

To this end, to salvage what is left of the act of sabotage, unpatriotic tendency and blatant abuse of priviledge, we demand an immediate resignation of the speaker of the house of representatives, Yakubu Dogara and the removal of Jubrin as chairman of the house committee on appropriation.

Our nation can not afford this light handed individuals as leaders else our future be collectively doomed...

Long live the federal republic of Nigeria.
Olufemi Lawson
Executive Director