Akinwunmi Ambode, the immediate past governor of Lagos state, today October 15th, failed again to appear before the House of Assembly ad-hoc Committee probing the activities of his administration, especially the purchase of 820 buses for mass transit.
Recall that last week, the state Assembly threatened to issue a warrant of arrest for Ambode if he continues to ignore the invitation to appear before its committee for questioning.
When the matter was brought before the house today, the chairman of the investigation committee, Fatai Mojeed, told lawmakers that the immediate past Commissioners for Finance, Akinyemi Ashade and Special duties Oladejo Seye, who served under Ambode, had written to the committee notifying them of their absences as they were currently out of the country.
Mojeed told his colleague that Ambode once again shunned the committee.
It was reported that the Speaker, Mudasiru Obasa, while reacting to the development, said the house will send Ambode’s invitation publicly through newspaper publications and that if he fails to appear again, then a warrant for his arrest will be issued immediately.
In the meantime, some of the former commissioners in Ambode’s tenure have told the committee that quite a lot of contracts and even major procurements made by the Ambode administration did not follow due process.
The former Commissioners claimed that the former Governor carried out major activities without their knowledge.
Former Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, Olusegun Banjo, revealed that the purchase of the 820 buses by Ambode “was not rooted through its ministry.”
Banjo, who stated that he became commissioner in February 2018, said he followed the system he met on ground, which according to him was responsible for shady transactions on the buses that were procured.
“The way the ministry is structured, it did not allow us to function well.
The N24 billion did not come to my ministry. We didn’t have a running system. As a commissioner, I could not approve one naira. All the MDAs approached the Governor directly.” Banjo said.
