Members of the Kwara State House of Assembly have described as baseless and unfounded a claim by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, that he funded the election of members of the ninth legislature in the state.
The members said the only Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq supported them during their campaigns.
The Speaker of the House, Yakubu Danladi-Salihu, spoke on behalf of the members at a press conference in Ilorin, the state capital.
He clarified that reiterated that the Minister did not in any form support the then APC House of Assembly candidates during the campaigns and election.
Danladi-Salihu, who spoke through the Deputy Speaker of the House, Raphael Olanrewaju Adetiba, a member representing Oke-Ero Constituency, explained that Mohammed’s claim is farther from the truth.
“We ordinarily should have ignored the Minister and took it as another lie from Lai Mohammed but for the unsuspecting members of the public and posterity, the record needs to be set straight,” he said, flanked by several members of the Assembly.
The speaker said the briefing is jointly held on behalf of 21 of the 24 members of the Assembly, whom he said were convinced that Kwara can no longer be brought under any godfather or slave driver.
He said, “Lai Mohammed did not give any support in any form to members of the ninth legislature during the campaign and election; if he did, he should name who and what he gave out.
“Lai Mohammed did not participate in any of our election campaigns and did not also contribute financially to it.”
“Apart from the governorship candidate, the other support was the sum of N500,000 each that we received from the national headquarters of our party. Other than that, it was the governor who funded our expenses including logistics, souvenirs, posters and other campaign materials. Even so, at no time did the Governor go about telling anyone that he funded our campaign.
“It is also laughable that Lai Mohammed could claim to have personally raised money to finance the 2019 general elections in Kwara State.”
The lawmakers advised the minister not to drag them into any fuss he may be having with the Governor and leader of the part in the state.
