Two former members of the Ambode Akinwunmi Admnistration in Lagos State have denied claims that they indicted their former boss before the House of Assembly panel investigating the procurement of 820 buses.
Former Commissioner for Energy and Mineral Resources Wale Oluwo and his counterpart in Budget and Economic Planning, Olusegun Banjo, said their testimony before the panel was skewed by a section of the media.
Oluwo, in a letter addressed to the Managing Director of Independent Communications Network Limited, publishers of PM News, said the report with the headline ‘Ambode Shuns Lagos Assembly Again, Ex Aides Indict Him’, included a paragraph that was not only false but a complete misrepresentation of the proceedings.
He faulted a phrase in the report that he and the former commissioner for Agriculture, Toyin Suarau, said many of the projects including the Oshodi Transport Interchange and others were never captured in the state budget.
“That report is completely false and indeed a misrepresentation of the proceedings.
“For the records, I wish I state the facts as follows: I attended the second session of the Committee proceedings on October 15, 2019
“The ex-commissioner for Agriculture, Mr. Toyin Suarau and I were called into the Committee room at the same time. So the questions asked both of us were in the open.
“Suarau was asked questions on the Lagos State Rice Mill project in Imota while I was asked questions on the LED-UK street lights installations (a UK Exim Bank funded project).
“I answered the committee’s questions to the best of the information available to me and at no time was any of us asked questions on Oshodi interchange or any other project outside the two mentioned above.
He charged the management of medium to investigate the misrepresentation and correct it, saying that “by so doing, they would have succeeded in convincing the general public that it is unbiased and capable of staying above the fray in this high-wire political events unfolding in Lagos State”.
“For the avoidance of doubt, I reiterate that I did not and could never have indicted former governor Akinwunmi Ambode. I am a committed democrat, a loyal team player and a strong believer in the principle of collective responsibility,” Oluwo said.
Banjo, in a press statement, said he was “deeply saddened and disappointed by such sensationalism by hitherto section of the press and by its uninhibited and deplorable abdication of a basic tenet of professional journalism- impartial reportage.
“To my utter chagrin the press reports of my testimony before the committee are skewed in such a manner as to suggest that I had been scathingly critical of the last Administration in which I had served and had painted the executive in bad light.
“It is instructive to note that the operational lapses in the other arms of Government that I also made specific mention of in the course of my testimony before the committee were deliberately ignored and were not reported on by the press in their coverage.
“I wish to state that I am not in a position to know what exactly transpired on the issue of the buses as I was not in Government when the issue was tabled and approved by the State Executive Council and neither was I drafted into the bus Steering committee on assumption of duty in February 2018,” Banjo said. (The Nation)
