On December 18, 2013, the Chairman of the
House of Representatives Committee on Finance,
Mr. Abdulmumin Jibrin, hired me to come up with
some 50 questions the House Committee on
Finance wanted to slam on the then Coordinating
Minister of the Economy and the Minister of
Finance, Ms Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to prove to the
world that she has been mismanaging the
country’s economy.
As a well-known critic of Ms Okonjo-Iweala, Mr
Jibrin told me that after the committee’s long
deliberations, they decided that there was no one
better than I to come up with these 50 questions
covering all sectors of the country’s economy.
Notwithstanding his flattering, I insisted that for
me to come up with these 50 questions within
the shortest period of time, and the fact that the
50 questions should reflect all sectors of the
economy, I have to be paid the sum of N100
million. With Mr Jibrin and I agreeing on my fee
to be N100 million, I quickly went to work,
suspending all my engagements, including an
important meeting with some foreign diplomats.
As if not enough, three months later when Ms
Okonjo-Iweala submitted her response to the 50
questions, Mr. Jibrin calling from Switzerland,
insisted that since I came up with the 50
questions, he was further hiring me to react to
her response. He went further to inform me in
advance that as soon as he returned to Nigeria,
he would call for a public hearing with my
reaction to her response to the 50 questions
forming the basis for the would be well
publicized public hearing.
In fact, he told me that the goal was to humiliate
this so-called Coordinating Minister of the
Economy. While I had no disagreement with
whatever his committee intended to achieve, I
had to let him know that that too should be paid
for. After long argument, he agreed on N15
million as my fee to react to her response,
bringing the total agreed consulting fee to N115
million. As he bragged on the phone, a public
hearing by the House Committee on Finance was
scheduled in March 2014.
But to my great shock, the public hearing which I
was invited as a major resource person along
with other Nigerians was suddenly called off two
days to the day of the hearing. And to my
greatest dismay, I only read the announcement
on the pages of some national newspapers. I
was not happy that I was not informed by Mr
Jibrin who had always called me, including
sometimes three times a day. I was not happy
because I had to cancel a foreign trip and had to
travel and return the same day from Lagos since
Mr Jibrin needed me to hold a meeting with his
committee to discuss the modality of posing the
questions to her. While reading it, I quickly called
Mr Jibrin, but he didn’t pick.
The shocker of my life came when after several
trials to talk to Mr. Jibrin to ascertain the
authenticity of what I was reading in the
newspapers, he finally picked my call with
response, “why must you be informed?” His tone
on the phone, almost made me lose breath. But
calmly I thanked him and told him that maybe he
wasn’t in his best mood. Since then on he never
picked my calls.
I became worried. When eventually I got him on
the phone, I politely requested for an urgent
meeting with him regarding my consulting fees.
But he quickly asked what consulting fees should
we be meeting for? I responded by reminding him
that it was about my consulting fees for the 50
questions. But while I was asking him when and
where he would like us to meet, he hung the
phone on me. He called later to give me a date
and time to come over to his private office in
Ministers Hill, but made it clear to me that he
did not know what fees I was talking about.
Calmly, I accepted his proposed date and time
for the meeting.
At the meeting he openly but arrogantly told me
that as smart as I thought I was, including
having an MIT education, that I was a fool who
could be easily used and dumped. To quickly
drive this home, he asked me to produce any
form of written agreement or contract to show
that I did the 50 questions not to mention
agreement to be paid N115 million consulting
fees. I appealed to him to recognize the work I
did which I did believing in his being an
honorable member of the House of Reps.
Laughingly, he told me the meeting was over and
that I should never ever contact him on my so-
called consulting fees. I quietly left his office.
While leaving his office, I told him that maybe he
needed some time to recall our meetings and
phone calls where he hired me and assured me
that as an honorable member of the House of
Representatives his word should be his bond. I
went further to tell him that he should better
start putting the money together because
nothing would make me not to demand to be
fully paid my fees, whether we signed an
agreement or not; and that agreements either in
writing or oral are legally binding. As if I knew he
would negate on this oral agreement, to
safeguard my intellectual property, I introduced
five questions into the 50 questions from my
previous newspaper articles.
When every effort to have the house to pay me
or agree on when to pay me fall through, I
discovered that I had no other option but to write
the Speaker a letter which I copied the
committee chairman demanding for my payment
and inserting the five question along with the
pages of the newspapers were they were lifted
verbatim. Once he got my copy, Mr. Jibrin who
had been avoiding my calls, called me late that
day, which I asked my assistant to pick and hear
him out.
He rained on me with insults and as God could
have it, he sent series of blackmailing SMS,
telling me that his lawyers would soon descend
on me for trying to extort money from him as a
member of the House of Representatives. But
when I threatened him with plagiarism, as luck
would have it, his text message response was,
“you are sick for plagiarizing yourself.” In other
words, he has officially told me that in fact, I
have a case against him, the speaker and the
House.
Efforts were made by me and my lawyers to
meet with the speaker on this matter. Eventually
through a powerful clergyman, an agreement was
reached for a meeting with the Speaker, Aminu
Tambuwal who called me and confessed never
to be aware of the case. I reminded him of a
copy of my letter that was sent to him, which he
denied seeing. He promised a meeting in his
residence and gave me his media assistant’s
number Mr. Imam Imam. On the day of the
meeting, every effort to reach both the speaker
and his media assistant, failed.
In the meantime, my lawyer during his
investigation of who was the House of
Representative’s lawyer in this case, came to
know that it one of the country’s foremost
lawyers. When a meeting with the powerful SAN
eventually took place, I was shocked by how
much the SAN knew about the case, and in his
usual humorous way, told me that as a human
rights lawyer, he would do everything within his
power to make sure that the case was settled
out of court and that I am fully paid for the job
well-done, a job that the whole House was proud
of for having embarrassed Okonjo-Iweala on her
poor handling of the country’s economy.
But every effort by Falana to organize a meeting
with the speaker, who he told me was readily
willing to settle the issue, never materialized. As
a result, my lawyers had no option but to sue Mr.
Jibrin, Mr Tambuwal, and the House of Reps.
Understandably, it was a time everyone, including
the speaker was fighting for their political life
because the powerful PDP was determined to
render the speaker a political orphan for having
used the party to become the speaker and now
dumping the party to join the newly formed APC.
Given the nonchalance attitude exhibited and the
colossal abuse of office by both the Speaker and
the Committee Chairman all these months, I
finally decided it is high time I sought a redress
in the Court of law; hence the lawsuit no.
CV/890/14 instituted at the High Court of the
Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, on December 23,
2014. What still baffles me to date is why the
well-publicised March 2014 public hearing was
called off? It was so unbelievable that after the
120 paged reactions to the Okonjo-Iweala’s
response to my earlier 50 questions the whole
was just suddenly called off without any form of
explanation. Could one be left to wonder if some
kind of “settlement” took place?
I am yet to recover from my encounter with this
serial blackmailer and liar, who calls himself an
honorable member of the House of
Representatives. It is unbelievably how people
like Jibrin could have made it to the country’s
House of Representatives. I am not surprised
that he has been sacked from being the House
Committee Chairman on Appropriation. I am
equally not surprised to read his ongoing effort
to blackmail the leadership of the House, after
all that is his specialty.
I think that the people of Kano should do this
country a great favor if they should recall this
dishonourable man, so that he stops using his
constituency as the platform to terrorize the
country. Also, let me use this opportunity to
invite EFCC and DSS to fully and thoroughly
investigate this man’s enormous wealth, his bank
accounts including how he made the money he
used in buying his numerous latest luxury cars;
his expensive properties in Ministers Hill,
Maitama where he locates his private office and
his expansive and expensive Wuse 2 residence.
Here is a man who as the Chairman of the
House Committee on Finance was alleged to be
extorting billions of naira from ministry,
departments, and agencies of government under
his committee, and those refusing to play along
were threatened with a public hearing with the
goal of blackmailing them. Thank God for
President Buhari, the era of using budget
padding to steal billions from our commonwealth
by people like Mr. Jibrin is fast becoming a thing
of the past.


www.thescoopng.com/jibrin/

hmmmm.....insightful. bullseye

Dogara should fight Jibrin to the end, but this story has many loose ends.

Odilim Onyebara, another ipob doing the dirty job of attacking Dogara's enemy. If he demanded for N100million to raise embarrassing questions against NOI, he should tell us how much he demanded this time around from Dogara in order to come up with this tales by moonlight.

Dogara better get ready to provide answers to all the allegations raised against him by Jibrin. This silly attempt at blackmailing Jibrin will not help his case.

Thescoopng.com? Well I reserve my comment pending to when we recieve it from a reliable source.

Rubbish, why tell us now.?

seunmsg:
Odilim Onyebara, another ipob doing the dirty job of attacking Dogara's enemy. If he demanded for N100million to raise embarrassing questions against NOI, he should tell us how much he demanded this time around from Dogara in order to come up with this tales by moonlight.

Dogara better get ready to provide answers to all the allegations raised against him by Jibrin. This silly attempt at blackmailing Jibrin will not help his case.

who is this moda poker saying rubbish here, have u ever heard Dogara's name in any scandalous deal in his 12years in the reps? better be careful if not you will end like him Jibrin and una buroda Pacrook Lawan

Welcome to politicking 202
Never throw stones in glass house

50 questions, I remember them.silly questions that were not really bordering on economic fundamentals.

So its this idiot that wrote them and he attended MIT? What a shame. This onyebara guy is so silly he is exposing his mighty greed. 115M No wonder the talkative Jibrin scammed you.

Onyebara, Jibrin, dogara are all scamists.

I weep for Nigeria

I don't knw what he is trying to come up with. All i am saying is all those that padded d budget shld step down.