Sunday Ani
Members of the Lagos State House of Assembly have debunked media report that the speaker, Mudashiru Obasa, spends N17 million every month to maintain his residence and guest house, describing 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 the SaharaReporters on April 26, described the report as erroneous.
He said: “The sum covers various expenditures of the full offices including the Office of the Chief of Staff, Special Advisers, Budget and Political Matters, 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 demand and specialty of the House.
“I must also state that these expenditures have been in existence before the emergence of Obasa. In fact, it dates back to as far as 2012 when it was N27 million monthly and I have the documents here to show that the expenditures had been in existence since 2012.”
He described the report by SaharaReporters as a deliberate attempt to tarnish the image of the legislative house.
The lawmaker representing Somolu Constituency 1, and Chairman, House Committee on Finance, Rotimi Olowo, said SaharaReporters was unprofessional and unethical in its style of journalism, even as he said the media outfit is known for tarnishing brand image and inciting the public against constituted authorities and individuals by deliberately publishing misleading reports.
In his contribution, Temitope Adewale, (Ifako Ijaiye 2), who corroborated Olowo’s position, described the publisher as a presidential loser, who was alleged to have mismanaged his party’s campaign funds.
“The same man was the party’s presidential candidate, and at the same time, the party’s national chairman. We don’t need to waste our time over his publication; we can explore the legal means by suing the medium,” said Adewale.
However, Gbolahon Yishawu, ( Eti Osa 2), who argued that an attack on Obasa is an attack on the whole members, was of the opinion that SaharaReporters was trying to incite the public against the Speaker and the House of Assembly.
Chairman, House Committee on Information, Strategy and Security, Tunde Braimoh, who advised that the report was malicious and should be totally ignored, lamented that the medium did not reach out to the House to get their own side of the story.
He also said the medium is known for publishing unbalanced reports. He said: “A responsible journalist could have reached out to me as Chairman on Information Committee before publishing what is not true.”
However, Obasa explained that it was necessary to correct the wrong impression created by the medium to the public by letting them know that the House is not reckless on spending and not known for frivolous expenditure.
He further said the essence of announcing the report at plenary was to debunk it’ as silence means consent. “As rightly pointed out by the Clerk, these are expenditures that have been in existence before 2015, and he has been able to trace some documents to 2012, 2013, 2014. So, it shows that SaharaReporters and its cohorts would not get anywhere and we are not ready to join issues with the medium. We remain resolute,” Obasa said.