Posted on: 12:40 Sat, 06 Aug 2016

The Speaker of the House of Representatives has been caught saying budget padding is not an offence under any law.



Yakubu Dogara, the Speaker of the House of Representatives has claimed that budget padding is not an offence.

He has consequently come under heavy attack as prominent groups and individuals have berated him for the comment.

According to Saturday Punch, in separate interviews on Friday, they said that the Speaker’s statement showed that he was not sensitive to the suffering of Nigerians.

Dogara, after a closed-door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday, said that he would not resign over the budget padding allegation levelled against him and 12 others by a former Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, Abdulmumin Jibrin.

The Speaker also said that budget padding was not an offence under the law.

In an interview with journalists after the meeting, which lasted for 30 minutes, the Speaker said, “I studied Law and I have been in the legislature and all this period I have never heard of the word ‘padding’ being an offence under any law.”