The Lagos State House of Assembly on Monday came out clean concerning a report that N17 million is spent on the guest house and offices of the Speaker, Rt. Hon. Mudashiru Obasa.
The lawmakers, while speaking during plenary, debunked the media report and described the allegation as baseless and misleading.
The Clerk of the House, Mr Azeez Sanni, who called the attention of the lawmakers to the report published by SaharaReporters on April 26, explained that it was erroneous and aimed at putting the House in bad light.
According to Sanni, the sum “covers various expenditure of the full offices; the Office of the Chief of Staff, Special Advisers, office of the Chief Press Secretary, Special Assistant (Protocol), Special Assistant (Research and Development), Special Assistant (Women Affairs), and 15 Special Assistants engaged to attend to the growing demands and specialty of the House.
“I must also state that this expenditures have been in existence prior the emergence of Speaker Obasa . In fact it is dated back to as far as 2012 when it was N27 million monthly and I have the document here to show that the expenditure had been in existence since 2012.”
The Chairman, House Committee on Information, Strategy and Security, Hon. Tunde Braimoh, added that the medium did not reach out to the House to get their own side of the story, adding that the report was malicious and should be totally ignored.
Braimoh, who said the medium is known to always write unbalanced reports, said if Sahara Reporters had reached out to the House before rushing to publish their report, they could have been better guided .
Speaking on the issue, the Speaker Obasa explained that it was necessary to correct the wrong impression created by the medium to the general public by letting them know that the House is not reckless or frivolous on its spendings.
“As rightly put by the Clerk, this is an expenditure that has been existing before 2015 and he has been able to trace some document to 2012 , 2013, 2014.
“It shows SaharaReporters and its co-travellers would not get anywhere and we are not ready to join issues with it. I agree with you that we don’t have to waste our time on it. We remain resolute,” Obasa said.
