Yakubu Dogara, Speaker of the House of Representatives, says he never interfered with the 2016 budget or tried to exact undue influence on the House committee on appropriation, then headed by Abdulmumin Jibrin.

Dogara made this known in his biography — A Reed Made Flint — written by ace journalist Dele Momodu, a copy of which was obtained by TheCable newspaper ahead of its public presentation scheduled for December 26.

Sometime in July 2016, shortly after he was removed as Chairman of the appropriation committee, Jibrin began making series of allegations against Dogara and three other principal officers of the House: Yusuf Lasun, Deputy Speaker; Alhassan Doguwa, Chief Whip; and Leo Ogor, Minority Leader.

Jibrin alleged that the four lawmakers illegally inserted phantom projects worth hundreds of billions of naira into the 2016 budget.

He was later suspended from the House for 180 legislative days after he refused to withdraw the allegations.

But in his biography, Dogara said he never even knew what was in the budget, as he trusted that the appropriation committee, under Jibrin’s leadership, was competent enough to handle the budget.

“My kind of nature is not the kind that insists on breathing down your neck, having given you an assignment,” Dogara was quoted as saying in the book.

“So, attempting to interfere in everything committees are doing was not my line. I believe in giving everyone considered competent enough to handle posts to thrive in them.

“I don’t believe in making my colleagues feel distrusted. I give you that freedom to do your work. Having trusted you, I will not bother you too much. I never went to Jibrin to ask for anything in the budget. Never! Even once!”

“Occasionally both leadership of the Senate and the House would meet and ask [Danjuma] Goje [Chairman of the Senate Appropriation Committee] and Jibrin to give the position of things, how discussions on the 2016 Budget were going on, how they were doing and so on and so forth.

“But I gave him absolute free hand to operate. He did that up to a point that the Budget was written and compiled I hadn’t seen anything.

“I didn’t know what was there. As a matter of fact I didn’t even know the kind of projects that he has included for me or any other person in the Budget.

“I was even in London when they submitted the details to the President for his assent. It was only after I got back home that Jibrin brought the details of the budget to me for the very first time.

“Absolutely, I had no hand, no prior meeting with the committee. I didn’t sit with them at the secretariat to say ‘Oh, include these projects for me. You must do this. You must do that.’ Never! Even for a day.”

Dogara admitted that Jibrin, who had supported Femi Gbajabiamila in the run-up to the election of the House Speaker, later defected to his team and supported him 100%.

“I will say that although Honourable Abdulmumin Jibrin wasn’t with our team initially, he later supported me 100%, wholeheartedly. Luckily his secretariat wasn’t far from ours and he was handy.”

Dogara, however, added that people had warned him that “it is suicidal to entrust such an important post (of appropriation chairman) to such a man” as Jibrin, but he never listened.