The current Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt Hon Femi Gbajabiamila is said to be swimming in such murky waters of allegations of financial misappropriation, arrogance and dictatorship.
He is allegedly facing backlashes and opposition from aggrieved members of the House over his dictatorial leadership which left the Principal Officers and other members who supported his Speakership aspiration regretting giving him their support.
He has been accused of single-handed disbursement and spending of the House allocation and other funds accrued to it. This has left many members fuming with regret for supporting him.
This medium’s investigation revealed that the NASS is collecting about N120 billion monthly as statutory allocation, shared in the ratio of 40% and 60% between the Reps Service Commission and the House. What it means is that at least, Gbajabiamila collects N72 billion monthly and singlehandedly disbursed it.
He does not involve other Principal Officers in the disbursement of the huge sum of money.
He, not only single-handedly disbursed the monthly allocation, he also ensured that the lion share of the allocation goes to his office, allegedly raising spurious vouchers to cover his tracks of between N380 million to 600 million running cost per month for himself as against less than N25 million for his Deputy and less than N9 million for other members.
It was also gathered that while Gbajabiamila purchased new cars and other utility vehicles for his use, his Deputy has not been so lucky with him and still using the official cars he inherited from his predecessor in 2019.
“For the past four years, the Deputy Speaker has been using the vehicles he inherited from his predecessor. The Speaker bluntly refused to buy new official cars for him but he has purchased new cars for himself,” one of the aggrieved members from Kano State told our correspondent.
He has also been accused of single handedly dishing out contracts emanating from the House to his cronies.
One example of such was the official cars purchased for House members. More than 400 cars are purchased for the lawmakers as their official cars and this medium learnt that the usual practice is for supply slots allocated to the Speaker and other Principal Officers.
However, Gbajabiamila allegedly deviated from this path, allocating majority of the slots to himself through cronies.
“Over 400 cars are purchased and the usual practice is for the Principal Officers to be given allocated numbers to be supplied. The Deputy Speaker is expected to be given 100 slots while the Speaker take 200. But in this instance, Gbajabiamila broke away from the convention and allocated only 30 slots for the Deputy Speaker, and that one duly rejected it,” a member of the House from one of the states in the North East told our correspondent.
Another scam contract is the renovation of the chambers alleged to have cost the govt over N42 billion.
This medium investigation revealed that Gbajabiamila, contrary to the posture of a righteous politician he is displaying in public, is allegedly dictatorial and arrogant in his dealings with other members of the House.
“We all know he’s arrogant but in addition to this, the assumption of office as the Speaker has shown that he’s not to be trusted with power,” a member of the House told this medium on Monday.
Gbajabiamila was further accused by some members of the House, both outgoing and returning of running a one man show. “Decisions, especially bothering on finances are usually taken without recourse to the Principal Officers,” another member alleged.
A member gave an instance of such one man show citing example of what happened during the last General Elections. It was alleged that the Speaker collected huge sums of money running into billions of naira from the Federal Government but only disbursed $15,000 each to his colleagues.
There are other atrocities the Speaker was alleged to have committed and it was in his bid to cover all these, that he is vehemently working and campaigning against his Deputy from replacing him.
Naturally, many members of the House believed that his Deputy, Idris Wase, who has been committed and loyal to him should be his natural successor.
But Gbajabiamila would have none of it. He didn’t trust Wase. Of course, he was just afraid of his own shadow and afraid of the consequences of the way he had treated the Deputy Speaker and the other Principal Officers in the last four years.
The desire to cover his tracks and cover up his misdemeanor while in office is thus pushing him to do the unthinkable, throwing caution to the winds in supporting the candidate he believes will cover up his tracks, pushing an unknown candidate forward and imposing him on the leadership of the party as the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Gbajabiamila knows quite well that he stands no chance of escaping the scrutiny of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) when he leaves office. His alleged atrocities and financial misappropriation while in office, some of which have been highlighted above, are legendary.
This medium learnt that it was this alleged desire to cover his track that first made him go into an alleged agreement with the Ahmad Lawan group prior to the presidential primaries of the All Progressives Congress (APC), but when it was obvious that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu will win, he came rushing back playing the role of the obedient and loyal boy.
Then the Lawan group assured him that he would retain his position as the Speaker of the House if Lawan became the President. At last, the bubble burst and it became obvious that Asiwaju will win the primaries, he did a 360 degree U-turn and return to the Asiwaju camp and trying in vain to outdo others who have sacrificed their time, energy and resources to get the needed result for the President-elect.
After the elections were concluded, and it was obvious that for zoning reason, Gbajabiamila would not be returning as the Speaker of the House of Representatives, he quickly put in motion moves to impose a candidate who will not only be answerable to him but will also not probe his sins and cover up his tracks.
Members of the House have vowed to prevent the Speaker from imposing his choice candidate on them.
Many of the members vowed to work against the endorsement of Tajudeen Abbas as the successor to Gbajabiamila.
“Abbas is his stooge and we won’t allow him impose his stooge on us.
“The leadership of the party should know that Gbajabiamila is not the only member of the APC in the House. Although he’s the Speaker, he just first among equals and we won’t allow him impose his candidate on us,” another House member told this medium.
For Gbajabiamila, these are not certainly the best of time for him and indeed, the guilty are always afraid!
