Lagos state House of Assembly insisted Wednesday that Governor Akinwunmi Ambode and some of his commissioners earlier invited to explain infractions on the state budget must appear before it.

Majority Leader, Hon. Sanai Agunbiade stated this while briefing House correspondents after an emergency parliamentary meeting by the lawmakers Wednesday night.

He said nobody was witch-hunting the governor as being insinuated in some quarters but that the infractions were serious issues the House cannot over look.

Agunbiade said the House decided to correct some wrong information and misconception being bandied around by the House resolutions on Ambode Monday last week.

As a fall out of the massive protest Wednesday at the Lagos State House of Assembly by concerned Lagosians against the planned impeachment of Governor Akinwunmi by the Assembly, members went into an emergency parliamentary meeting immediately after the protest.

Referring to the earlier protest, Agunbiade said the House is not saying that Ambode should not end his tenure but that because of issues surrounding the 2019 budget he was summoned by the House.

According to him, the major contention is that he has started spending from the 2019 budget which has not been laid before the House which is against constitutional provisions.

“The budget is supposed to have been laid before the commencement of another fiscal which has always been the practice in the state, and unless it is laid you cannot spend from it but the governor has gone ahead to make expenditure from the budget.

“There are also some infractions the House observed about the 2018 budget, expenditures made outside the budget, which necessitated the invitation the House extended to him and some commissioners to come and explain things.

“It is not witch-hunting as people believe, to make expenditure from the budget you must have laid it before the House, for now we don’t have the budget so you can’t spend. As legislators we must do things properly,” he said.

Agunbiade also corrected some misconceptions which he said are being tied to the Ambode issue that it was not true that the lawmakers are after Ambode because he refused to fund their campaign.

The Assembly had adjourned sitting till Monday next week but suddenly summoned members for an emergency meeting Wednesday after the massive protest by pro-Ambode supporters appealing to the Assembly not to impeach the governor.

The Assembly had accused Ambode of alleged gross misconduct and spending money from the 2019 budget that had not yet been laid or approved by the House and spending outside the 2018 budget

Speaker of the House, Mudashiru Obasa had told members who wished that Ambode should be impeached to start collecting signatures in readiness to impeach the governor.

•Sourced from The Nation report

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