[The Legislative Blog]: Is the House of Reps ready for Hon Jibrin’s verbal onslaught?

Jibrin

Hon Abdulmumin Jibrin has lost the battle.

The House of Representatives today suspended Hon Jibrin representing Kiru/Bebeji Federal Constituency of Kano State. His suspension is to last 180 legislative days and that amounts to 540 days considering the House sits three days a week, between Tuesday and Friday. Our calculations reveal that Hon Jibrin will be away for well more than one year. When he returns, he will not be allowed to hold any position of responsibility in the House for the duration of the assembly. Finally, he is to issue a written apology to the House.

The decision to suspend Hon Jibrin came on the heels of his failure to attend the Ethics Committee hearing he was referred to. In case you missed it, exactly 7 days ago, a lawmaker in the House moved a motion against Hon Jibrin as regards the budget padding allegations. Speaker, Hon Yakubu Dogara then referred Hon Jibrin to the Ethics and Privileges Committee for investigation. At the time, Jibrin seemed alright with that decision as he did not outrightly contest. He even made an effort of stating conditions under which he would be obliged to appear before the Ethics Committee. His resolve from the get-go was to fight till the end until hearing day and Hon Jibrin failed to show. His excuse? The committee was acting the Speaker’s script. Let’s not forget though, that the committee had agreed to his terms of a public hearing. So what exactly was Hon Jibrin getting up to by calling the committee’s bluff?

Whatever he had up his sleeves, he definitely saw this suspension coming. At a press briefing yesterday, Hon Jibrin said a suspension would amount to contempt of court by the House as his case against the Speaker and the four other lawmakers allegedly involved, was already before the courts. He also mentioned that in the invitation sent to him by the committee, there was no notice of the actual allegations brought against him. Apparently, the invitation only requested that he appeared with relevant documents. Now, this seems more like a tangible excuse.

On its part however, the Ethics and Privileges Committee concluded its hearing on the case despite the absence of the accused. The Chairman of the committee, Mr Nicholas Ossai based on this conclusion, recommended that Hon Jibrin be suspended and the majority of the House went with it.

Though it is not known the exact time the motion was recommended but at about past 1pm today, Hon Jibrin shared some information via his Twitter page where he is most vocal. He tweeted very interesting and amenable responses to @Ayourb’s request for a meet with the social media community to state his case. In what started out as bants, APC loyalist and one of Twitter NG’s most influential social commentators who tweets as @Ayourb threw the challenge at Hon Jibrin  who responded in good faith declaring his readiness to take up the challenge. He even went on to request the time and place for the meet.

And the never-say-die Hon Jibrin tweeted back like this:

He has been silent since this last tweet so we’re guessing he is still taking in the news of his suspension. But we do not see him standing down in spite of this new development. Suspension does not equal silence. We sure remember the time Hon Jibrin was removed from his position as the Chairman of the House Appropriation Committee, he broke Twitter records with 217 revelation tweets about Speaker Dogara and the padding team. So, what do we expect? A verbal onslaught. Let’s see what the morning brings.

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