•Releases 6 months payslip

From Kemi Yesufu, Abuja

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has hit back at Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai.

Yesterday night, Dogara released his monthly pay slips for six months.

For good measure, Dogara advised the governor to address  the many problems in his state and slammed him on his letter to President Muhammadu Buhari, which later went viral.

Regardless, Dogara’s payslips showed he earns a net pay of N402,530.37.

A breakdown of the monthly salary showed that the sum of N205,425.83 is for basic salary; N175,461.96 is for Constituency allowance; N20,642.68 is for recess allowance while N55,952.50 is deducted as Pay as You Earn (PAYE), with a balance of of N346,577.87.

However, there was no reference to how much the speaker’s office gets as security vote.

Dogara further  said in his response that  El-Rufai has a penchant for slinging mud at others for no reason and  accused the governor of turning a simple advice given him into huge controversy.    

According to him, not even President Muhammadu Buhari has been spared of El-Rufai’s attacks, which he said was targeted as ‎undermining the current administration.

Dogara and El-Rufai got into a war of words over the level of transparency among governors and the leadership of the National Assembly in Kaduna when they made presentations a five-day retreat ‎of National Assembly management staff.

Speaking at a press conference, yesterday, Chairman of the House Committee on Media and Publicity, Abdulrazak Namdas, specifically called on the governor to deal with high level of insecurity in his state.

This was he stated that Dogara has instructed the Clerk to the National Assembly, Sani Omolori, to make public, details of federal legislature’s budget.

“ We note that what Malam El-Rufai published was the security budget of Kaduna State and not his security vote expenditure as such.  We wish to advise the governor to concentrate his efforts in Governing Kaduna State and stop undermining and distracting the National Assembly in playing its constitutionally-assigned role in nation building.  He launched an attack on the National Assembly on Friday, April 7, 2017 and continued on Monday, April 10, 2017. We are aware that there are serious security issues he should be grappling with in Southern Kaduna and other governmental issues facing him. He should not give the impression that he has no challenging work to do in Kaduna.

“These attacks are coming on the heels of his now famous letter to Mr. Presidentwhere he made strenuous effort to undermine his government, by openly lampooning him when he has unhindered access to His Excellency, Mr. President. As a senior citizen, he has a responsibility not to unnecessarily overheat the polity with tendentious and unfounded outbursts” Namdas said.

The House spokesman insisted that budget of the National Assembly is a docuement that can be easily assessed by the public.

“ The National Assembly budget is not opaque. Since 2010, when the Constitution was amended and the National Assembly was placed on the First Line Charge, its budget became part of Statutory Transfers, together with the Judiciary, INEC and others. You cannot find details of the budget of the Judiciary and INEC in the national budget. It exists elsewhere. Of course, from 1999 to 2010, the details of the National Assembly budget was contained in the national budget. The leadership of the National Assembly has already directed the CNA to publish details of the National Assembly budget from 2017 and so, to continue to repeat the same call made  three days earlier, smacks of propaganda and cheap blackmail.

“The Kaduna State governor chose to give headings of its budget on security related matters. Maybe he will give further details of actual security expenditures at the appropriate time. He claimed that the state’s accounts have been audited. No grounds have been broken here.

“The response by the Kaduna State governor completely missed the point. Mr. speaker’s call was for El-Rufai to extend the campaign for openness and transparency to other arms of government, including the governors’ expenditures on security votes and local government funds.”

“He merely doubled down on his campaign on National Assembly budget leaving out other aspects of Mr. speaker’s request,” Namdas added.