Assembly committee bows to Court ruling, adjourns probe of Ambode

The joint committees of the Lagos State House of Assembly probing the activities of former governor of the state, Akinwunmi Ambode over some of his expenditures have bowed to the ruling of a State High Court to stay action on the matter and adjourned it until further notice.

The Court gave its ruling on Wednesday 30th October in response to the prayers of former governor Ambode, who sued the Assembly, after it summoned him to appear before its committee over the purchase of 820 buses without the approval of the House.

The Mudashiru Obasa-led Assembly had mandated the then Adhoc Committee on Transport headed by, Fatai Mojeed and the Committee on Budget and Economic Planning, headed by Gbolahan Yishawu, to probe the purchase of the buses by Ambode.

The House had threatened to issue a warrant of arrest on Ambode and four others who served under him as Commissioners.

The decision followed two preliminary reports presented by two different ad-hoc committees set up by the House to investigate the 820 buses purchased by Ambode and to appraise the 2019 mid year budget.

The former commissioners involved include Kazeem Adeniji (Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice), Olusegun Banjo (Commissioner for Budget), Akinyemi Ashade (Commissioner for Finance) and Wale Oluwo (Commissioner for Energy and Mineral Resources).

“Over N48 billion was spent for the purchase of the busses, and N22 Billion was spent on import duties. 520 of the buses are still at the seaport,” Mojeed had said.

He said further that the Accountant-General of the state told the committee that she depended on the approval from Ambode for the purchase of the busses and that no payment voucher was made available to the committee.

The lawmaker added that they also demanded the budget instrument used for the purchase, but that there was no budgetary provision for the purchases. “They could not produce any newspaper where the purchase of the buses was advertised.”

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On his part, Gbolahan Yishawu, Chairman ad hoc committee on mid-year budget review alleged that the above-mentioned commissioners were invited by his committee but that they refused to appear without giving any excuses for their absence.

Yishawu also claimed that the former governor gave some directives on spending without the approval of the lawmakers.

Addressing journalists on the matter after the adjournment by the Committee on Wednesday, Mojeed stated that the matter was adjourned indefinitely as the Committee got court summon to stay action on the matter and that they had to respect the opinion of the court.

“We are lawmakers. We are not law breakers, which was why we had to adjourn the matter indefinitely. The people of Lagos should be expecting more from us,” he said.

Also speaking, Gbolahan Yishawu said that the House was not trying to witch hunt anybody or put anybody on the spot for any reason.

Yishawu stressed that the Assembly was not being pushed by any individual on the matter, while recalling that the issue dated back to 2017, when it was included in the appropriation law but was not approved by the House.

However, Olaniran Obele from the chambers of Tayo Oyetibo (SAN), the counsel of former governor Akinwunmi Ambode, protested that they were not allowed into the committee meeting.

Obele stated that they were at the Assembly to hand over the court summon to the Chairman of the Committee and the Speaker of the House, but that the summon was not accepted and that they were prevented from witnessing the Committee meeting.

“The court said that nothing should be done about the matter and we tried to serve notices to the Chairman of the Committee and the Speaker of the House, but they refused to accept it from us.

“We were around while the preliminary proceeding was on, but we were not allowed in. We didn’t come here to submit court proceedings alone, but we came to represent the former governor. If they didn’t take any step, we don’t have problem with that, but it would be very sad if they took any action,” he said.