Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has accused National Leader of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, of pursuing fascist agenda “in his bid to foist leaders on the 9th National Assembly.”
Dogara stated this in Abuja on Tuesday in response to statements credited to Tinubu, in which he admitted to be sponsoring some aspirants to leadership positions in the 9th Assembly because Dogara and Senate President, Bukola Saraki, had padded budgets in the last four years.
The Speaker, in a statement made available to journalists through his media aide, Turaki Hassan, said “only the ignorant with dubious academic certificates will say the maker of a document has padded the document if such document can only be prepared constitutionally.”
“We have noted the statement issued on April 21, 2019 by Bola Tinubu wherein he stated his reasons for sponsoring some aspirants to leadership positions in the 9th Assembly.”
“Ordinarily, this would not have elicited any response from the Speaker had Tinubu confined his intervention to facts.”
“However, he, (Tinubu) chose to manufacture falsehoods and paint a non-existing picture of the stewardship of Mr Speaker and the work of the 8th House of Representatives under his watch.
“It is therefore, incumbent on us to set the records straight for the sake of posterity.”
“It is on record that the Speaker has done more to stabilize this government more than Tinubu and his ilk, whose stock in trade is scheming, manipulation and subversion especially when they feel they cannot be caught,” the statement said.
Tinubu was reported to have said, “Just look at the way Saraki, Dogara and their ilk hijacked the budget process these past four years. National budgets were delayed and distorted as these actors repeatedly sought to pad budgets with pet projects that would profit them”.
Dogara further warned the APC National Leader that any attempt to foist his stooges on the 9th Assembly would fail.
