Budget Padding: House Of Representatives’ Chief Whip Responds To Allegation

CHANNELS TV

The Chief Whip of the House of Representatives in Nigeria, Alhassan Ado Doguwa, has responded to the allegation of budget padding levelled against him and some other principal officers of the lower chamber.

In an interview with Channels Television on Sunday, Mr Doguwa described the allegation as frivolous and baseless.

A former Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, Honourable Abdulmumin Jibrin, had alleged that four principal officers of the House of Representatives – Speaker Yakubu Dogara, his Deputy, Suleiman Lasun, the Chief Whip Alhassan Ado Doguwa and the Minority Leader, Leo Ogor -padded the 2016 budget.

“Legitimate Responsibility”

It is now a week since Honourable Jibrin spoke exclusively to Channels Television on the allegation that the Speaker of the House of Representatives has dismissed, saying padding was not an offence.

On Sunday, however, Honourable Doguwa insisted that no matter what the lawmakers did on the budget, none of it could be regarded as a crime.

“When you expect a legislator to work on a bill, certainly he has the constitution and supreme right to deal with that bill at any level, whether in first reading second reading or general reading.

“At whatever level the legislator engages a budget, he is doing nothing but his legitimate responsibility,” he explained.

“Enemy To The Institution”

The lawmaker said padding was strange in context of the 2016 budget and that all the allegations made by honourable Jibrin were frivolous

“That is a strange word to me.

“It is a crime for you guys to be calling legislators ‘padders’. It is a speculation. Baseless speculation,” he said.

The Chief Whip further described Honourable Jibrin as a cancer in the legislative system of Nigeria’s National Assembly, insisting that that was why he was removed as the chairman of the Appropriation Committee.

“He is an enemy to the institution, an enemy to the system of democracy in Nigeria and our own great party, the APC [All Progressives Congress],” he told Channels Television.

Mr Doguwa , however, assured Nigerians that there would be a perfect budget in 2017.