The members of Oyo State House of Assembly have come out to break silence on the report by one online newspaper in Oyo State that they held secret Plenary to hurriedly and secretly approve N100bn for the executive arm of government.
The members said they did not have skeleton in their cupboard and as such it had no hiding agenda when it called an emergency meeting on Friday to re-approve N100billion loan request by Governor Seyi Makinde.
The rejoinder came on the eve of insinuations making the rounds on the social media that the lawmakers had approved another loan request at a secret plenary which was attended by only 13 members on Friday.
The Chairman House Committe on Information, Hon. Kazeem Olayanju while denouncing the report claiming that 13 out of 33 members were present at the Plenary to hurriedly and secretly approve the loan for the executive arm, said contrary to claims, 23 out of the 33 members of the Assembly were in attendance at the emergency plenary.
He further added that all the lawmakers were duly informed of the plenary but that due to the fact that the House do not usually sit on Fridays, many of the members had travelled out of Ibadan but took permission not to attend the emergency plenary when they were informed on Friday.
Explaining the rationale behind the decision of the House leadership to hold the emergency plenary, Olayanju said the house had adjourned till July 27, and the time would be too late for the urgency required of the re-approval.
He said, an earlier N100billion loan request approved for the Governor to be accessed from the Central Bank of Nigeria could not meet up last year due to delay in tidying up the processes but that the effort of the Governor and his relationship with the CBN authorities made the window to be re-opened.
He added that, if the lawmakers will have to wait until the July 27 adjourned date, the opportunity would be lost again which made the option of an emergency plenary inevitable.
Olayanju said “Sometimes, towards the end of last year, there was a loan request sent to the House for approval. It was a N100billion loan from the CBN.
“We approved the bill but was not granted by the CBN due to time lapse.
“Since then, the governor has been mounting pressure on them. And with his rapport and pleading with the CBN, they gave him another opportunity to access it and we had to re-approve the request so that they would continue with the processing.
“So, it was the same loan request earlier approved but which we could not meet up with the timeline to access. It was the same one we revisited and re-approved.
“As soon as we got the information from the governor that a new window has been opened for the state to re-apply for the loan, we had to call for an emergency plenary.
“But, because we don’t usually sit on Fridays, many of our members had travelled out of Ibadan. So, the information was passed to all members on the WhatsApp platform, many of them took excuse that they had travelled. Some who were around also could not meet up with the timing due to their earlier schedules.
“Those available came and there was no hidden agenda and it was not a secret meeting. All the members were aware and even those that attended were not prepared to be at plenary but for the exigency.
“The members in attendance formed a quorum that legitimises the decisions. Twenty-three out of 32 members of the Assembly made the emergency plenary. We started the plenary around 1:30PM on Friday.
“We wanted to avoid what happened sometimes ago that our processes almost led to the delay in passing the bill and we had also adjourned till July 27 for all members.
“Delaying the passage till that time could again caused the state losing the opportunity that was why we surmounted an emergency meeting.”
Speaking on what the loan is meant to be used for, the Assembly spokesman said “The governor is getting the money for five major purposes including: upgrading of alakia airport, fixing the Oyo-Ogbomosho road, Ibadan circular road, dry port at Moniya and upgrading of three hospitals across the state to international standard.”