by Joachim MacEbong

Today, former House Committee Chair on Appropriation and Kano representative, Abdulmumin Jibrin on came on Twitter and made a very weird announcement – he would be continuing his assault on House of Representatives Speaker, Yakubu Dokara in 207 tweets. 207 tweets!

What rage, what bitterness would drive a serious minded 40-year-old public official deploy over 200 tweets against a former colleague in the latest instalment of what is the biggest political scandal since Farouk Lawan stuck naira notes in his shameless cap? And what exactly is Jibrin’s end-game?

We have 5 takeaways.

1. Jibrin did not come here to play, at all. At all: Jibrin’s meetings with the DSS, ICPC, EFCC, and Police all with apparently documented evidence detailing his allegations, show that this is much more than just an annoyed former appropriations chairman. This is a man bent on revenge. Given that Jibrin’s support helped Dogara become Speaker in a narrow win over Femi Gbajabiamila, this parting of ways is so fundamental, so total, that it bears asking what the real cause of it is. Is it just as simple as Dogara saying Jibrin was sacked, instead of saying he resigned? This will not end on the pages of newspapers or on social media.

This will not end in anything but a river full of rolled heads.

2. Move over, Ben Bruce. Jibrin is the real master of Twitter: The drawback of the House’s current recess, is a lack of media coverage. Dogara may have felt that Jibrin’s departure would give enough time for hostilities to cool down, but he was seriously mistaken. Jibrin is going around that by constantly going after Dogara on Twitter, and even an instruction from the APC to cease further public comments was too much for him to do. Jibrin clearly understands the power of media and is using it effectively while the House is in recess.

I mean this is the man, who woke up this morning and announced 207 tweets. And delivered. All of them.

3. Femi Gbajabiamila must be smiling – like a man whose personal gods have been fully activated: It was Jibrin who crucially sided with Dogara to deny the House member from Surulere his ambition to be Speaker. Since then, Femi Gbajabiamila has played his role as Majority leader quietly and without rancour. This vicious fall-out must be causing him a lot of amusement. In the event that Dogara does indeed step down, he will be one of the immediate beneficiaries, and not a few of his House colleagues would be wondering if this circus would have happened with him as Speaker.

Because there is nothing sweeter than the long game.

4. Nigerians get another look into how government works and, by God, it’s ugly: When two powerful people in government fight, the revelations are usually of much interest to Nigerians, who now know how constituency projects are a source of, at the very least, government waste, if not outright corruption. Of course, ‘budget padding’ has been going on for some time, but it took an appropriations chairman, one of the most powerful people in the legislature, to blow the lid off it. Nigerians have looked inside, and it is not pretty.

Even under Buhari, it’s ugly as ever – and all we have is his saintly silence.

5. The damage to the APC is significant and ongoing, and may never end: When combined with a failing economy, a commander-in-chief who is being gradually demystified, and a Senate President who moves from one controversy to another, the APC now has to deal with an all-out war in the House of Representatives that it controls. No question about it: The last 15 months have been a reality check for a party that is no longer in the opposition, and now has to govern, and govern well.

As we speak, all Nigerians can see when they look, is PDP by another name.

And a bonus number 6: There is nothing to be more scared of in the world, than a former friend who becomes a foe.

Nothing. At all.

Only the heavens, it will appear, can save Dogara now.

*Follow the #BudgetPaddingTracker – where we continue to cover this ongoing conversation from all the angles here.