The Speaker of the House of Assembly, Rt. Honourable Mudashiru Obasa, has told a probe panel set up to investigate series of financial misconduct allegations published in a report by an online news medium, Sahara Reporters, that the assembly gave N4 million to 18 lawmakers’ wives for training.
The speaker said this while denying several allegations, including spending N80 million as estacode for training women in Dubai.
“We gave N4 million to each of the participants for air ticket, hotels, feedings and local travel. Air ticket to Dubai alone is about N2 million.
“The House of Assembly is above common standard of excellence and we have to train people, and this comes with a cost. Learning is not cheap and I have never collected N80 million for estacode at a go before,” Obasa said.
The speaker also denied the allegation that the House spent N258 million to print invitation cards for 9th Assembly inauguration. Obasa said while N61 million was spent on the event, invitations were produced at N1.1 million.
We are not involved in such frivolous expenditure, the Speaker said.
Mr Obasa denied that he spent N53 million for a trip to the United States with his mistress.
“We were invited by the consular General for a programme in the United States. Later, the programme was postponed, but I had gone ahead. I had to return home and I told others not to bother to come until the postponed dates.”
The Speaker said he never spent N17 million on cleaning his guest house as published by Sahara Reporters. He claimed the expenditure existed before he became the Speaker.
He said the allegation that he tricked former Governor Akinwunmi Ambode to release N350 million to host a meeting of Conference of Speakers, was not true.
“There was no way I could have tricked Ambode to release such money. We had a meeting of the conference of Speakers who came with three members each and we had subcommittees who were catered for.
“We paid for the tickets of each Speaker, we paid for their hotel accommodation, feeding and souvenirs. We also provided local transportation for them.
Mr Azeez Sanni, the Clerk of the Lagos House pf Assembly, said the cost of eight buses the house purchased, exceeded N100 million, adding that it was approved by the Management Committtee, the Public Procurement Agency and the Ministerial Tenders Board.
The Clerk also said that the House purchased 80 cars for the 8th and 9th assemblies. In the 8th assembly, Mr Sanni said 40 back-up vehicles were purchased, while in the 9th assembly, 36 Prado Jeeps were purchased for members and principal officers got 6 land cruisers.
On how Sahara Reporters got documents it published, Mr Sanni said disgruntled staffers released the documents to the medium.
“The files go through many tables and there is no doubt that some devilish staffers take pictures of some of these documents and send to these people. The staff have taken oaths and this attracts dismissal.
We have been taking steps on that and we have transferred some staff, Sanni said.
The West African Pilot News had reported that persons and organisations including Sahara Reporters who accused the Speaker of financial misconduct, did not appear before the probe panel. The Chairman of the ad-hoc committee probing the allegations said Sahara Reporters acknowledged receiving the invitation.
“All these allegations are deliberate actions of my enemies to achieve their aims that they could not achieve in the House to remove me as the Speaker of the House, which was why they came up with such reports,” Mr Obasa remarked.
