The Senate said Dangabar, who is standing trial in an alleged N32.8 billion pension scam should be bold to mention the names of parliamentarians he “settled” with N8 billion to the public as doing so would help to bring probity in the country’s public lives.
Dangabar, who is standing trial along with five others for complicity in the police pension fraud, claimed that members of Senate and House of
Representatives Committees on Pension were beneficiaries of the N8 billion withdrawn from Police Pension Funds in 2009.
In a statement to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), dated February 14, 2012, Dangabar said that part of N8.9 billion withdrawn between January 5, 2009 and December 23, 2009 was used to settle members of the Police Pension Committees of the National Assembly.
He claimed that the purpose was to get the Police Pension Fund's budget passed by the lawmakers.
Dangabar's statement reads in part: "I was shown summary of cheques withdrawal, dated between January 5, 2009 and December 23, 2009, totaling N8, 920,371,822.24.
"The said sums mentioned above were used for the payment of police retirees.
"However, some amounts were also used for public relations to members of the Police Pension Committee of the National Assembly.
"The public relations monies were made as condition precedent before the budgets of the office were passed."
But Chairman, Senate Committee on Information, Media and Public Affairs, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, described the allegation that members of the Senate and House of Representatives were bribed to influence the outcome of the ongoing probe of the management of pension funds in Nigeria as a “pack of lies with no iota of truth with regards to the 7th Senate.”
Abaribe, who insisted that the names of those bribed should be made public, said the allegation may have been deployed as a ploy to blackmail and hoodwink Nigerians.