N2bn Fraud: Ogun Assembly Not After Amosun — Speaker

Speaker of the Ogun State House of Assembly says the house isn’t after the former governor, Ibikunle Amosun.

Gatekeepers News reports that the Ogun State House of Assembly, South-West Nigeria, said it is not after the immediate past governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, over the State Property and Investment Corporation N2.5 billion, allegedly unaccounted for.

The Assembly said its resolution only indicted the former Managing Director of the State OPIC, Babajide Odusolu, over the missing fund.

Odusolu’s tenure between 2015 and 2019 as the OPIC MD and Special Adviser to Amosun had come under probe by State Assembly.

The Speaker, Olakunle Oluomo, said this during the plenary held on Tuesday.

Oluomo said the Assembly had last month received the report of the House Committee on Public Accounts and Anti-Corruption on the probe, and passed resolutions, calling on the anti-graft agencies to investigate and recover into the State’s coffers, N2,579,771,717.71, allegedly unaccounted for under Odusolu’s watch.

He added that the Assembly had also directed the former Managing Director to pay back N40m that was unaccounted for in the year 2019 into the State Government’s purse within six months.

However, Odusolu, while responding, accused the lawmakers of political vendetta.

Odusolu, flanked by a team of lawyers led by Adetunji Adeniyi from Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa and Co., threatened to approach to court to challenge the legislature’s proceeding.

He accused members of the assembly of lacking accounting and auditing knowledge.

Odusolu said, “The Assembly has arrogated to itself the role of judge and jury and passed judgment without having adequate knowledge and information.

“I don’t think this is something that I should allow to go because if I allow it to go, not only will it destroy all the good works that have been done to build Ogun state, it will scare other professionals from ever volunteering to serve.”

Oluomo, while responding to the allegations, told Odusolu to clear his name, saying the probe report didn’t indict Amosun.

He said, “At a point, he started writing letters to the House that he does not want to appear, he cannot appear, he travelled, he is sick.

“And because we have a duty to serve the people of the State, to expose corruption and waste, all we did was to say, if the man is not coming again, he should go and meet the people that are empowered by law to do further investigations.

“The man started going to various television stations; what has that got to go with the House of Assembly? I repeat this House would not engage in a media war with anybody. And he was trying to draw the former Governor into it; this is not about Amosun.”