Reps budget padding crisis embarrassing to APC—Timi Frank

*Asks party’s NWC to resign

Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress APC, Comrade Timi Frank has described the ongoing budget-padding crisis in the House of Representatives as “highly embarrassing” to the party and the federal government.

•Timi Frank
Frank who spoke with journalists Friday in Abuja however regretted what he described as the inability of the Chief John Odigie-Oyegun led National Working Committee NWC of the party to stave off the wave of crisis afflicting the party.

He called on the NWC to resign their position if they can no longer steer the ship of the party.

According to him, it is unfortunate that the crisis in the senate has not been resolved, saying in Kano, Kogi, Bayelsa and several other states, the situation is not any different.

Frank said the leadership of the party should by now have summoned the parties to the dispute with a view to resolving the crisis.

“If the NWC of the party cannot do it, I call on the leaders of the party to wade in. By now, I expected that we would have summoned the parties involved in the dispute to hear their side and make the necessary interventions. That is when the party knows its job but as it is I do not know whether the party enjoys thriving in crisis. The situation in the House of Representatives is not just embarrassing to the house but to the party including the president, who ofcourse I want to succeed in his determination to make life worth living for Nigerians”, he said.

He said the leadership of the party should resign if they cannot mitigate the series of crisis confronting the party. “I want to emphasize that this is not a personal attack on Oyegun or the leadership of the party but this is the reality”, he stated.

Sacked chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations, Abdulmumuni Jibrin had recently accused Speaker Yakubu Dogara and three principal officers of the house of padding the 2016 national. budget to the tune of over N40 billion, a development that has seen the house divided along several lines.