Dogara is my kid brother— El-Rufai

– Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna state, says he has no problem with the speaker of the house of representatives, Yakubu Dogara

– The governor described the speaker as his kid brother – Both men have been at loggerheads in the past few weeks over budget spendings Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna state, says he has no problem with the speaker of the house of representatives, Yakubu Dogara.

The governor described the speaker as his kid brother while responding to State House correspondents on his feud with the speaker. Both men have been at loggerheads in the past few weeks over budget spendings.

El-Rufai had challenged the national assembly to make its budget public. El-Rufai (right) says he has no problem with Dogara (left), describes him as his kid brother Responding, Dogara dared governors to publish their security votes and funds allocated to local governments.

Three days later, El-Rufai accepted the challenge and released details of his expenditure, while Dogara responded by making his pay slips for six months available to the public. El-Rufai said he had nothing personal against Dogara, adding that every Nigerian had the right to tell the national assembly to open its budget and that he made the call in the interest of the country. His words: “I have no problem with the speaker, he is my kid brother. He respects me and I respect him.

“It is in the National Assembly’s interest to actually publish its budget because there are rumours of bogus amounts of money that they are getting which I do not believe is true. “I think that the best way to kill that rumour is to publish the details of their budget but some people took exception to that call for transparency and I have no apologies because as citizens we have the right to demand for transparency for how resources are being spent.

“This N100 billion or so budget of the National Assembly is money belonging to the people of Nigeria and every Nigerian has the right to ask and I am exercising that right as a citizen not even as a governor. “It is only someone who has something to hide that will do things like that and I don’t believe that the national assembly have things to hide.”