I am not blocking $350m loan request by Ogun State- Senator Adeola

Senator representing Lagos West,  Nigeria, Senator, Solomon Olamilekan Adeola has broken his silence over the accusations that he “blocked” the $350million external loan request by Ogun State in the Senate.
Ogun state government had written to the federal government seeking an approval for a $350million external loan which was forwarded by the Presidency to the Senate alongside other states external borrowing request for concurrent legislative approval.

Adeola popularly known as Yayi while speaking to a cross section of people who paid him a courtesy visit in his residence in Ilaro, the headquarters of Ogun West Senatorial District said that the accusations in certain quarters that he blocked Ogun state from obtaining the Senate approval for the $350million external loan was untrue and diabolical.

In his words, “Well, it is true they did not mention my name in the first instance but I knew they were pointing their fingers at me from their accusations else, I would have cleared the air on the issue before now. Sincerely, I did not oppose the external loan request.

 “The fact is  when the Senate order paper was distributed and the loan request letter from Presidency was read by the Senate President, I checked the letter and saw my state Ogun being listed. I had no prior information about the loan to aid my argument for or against it.  Fortunately, a Senator moved a motion that the Senate President should not allow Senators debate the loan request but pass it to Senate Committee on Foreign loan for a thorough scrutiny. You know such request has to pass through three stages and due process”, he said.

Senator Adeola stated further: “One would have expected that such loan request would have passed through these stages but I think somebody wanted to use Presidency link to scale through all important aspects. I also understand through my investigation later that the Ogun State House of Assembly was unaware of the request”.

He added that when the request reached the Senate committee on foreign loan and the committee report to the whole house; Ogun and Kaduna States were missing. I confronted Senators Sheu Sanni, Jibrin Barau, Akanbi and the committee Chairman specifically on why Ogun was missing.

“The committee Chairman told me Ebonyi wanted to use the loan for ring road project, Katsina for Health system project, Kano for integrated agricultural and water resources development but Ogun and Kaduna “refused” to mention what they wanted to use the external ($350m each) for. What is my fault in this?” the Senator asked.

“It should however be noted that such a loan has to satisfy certain normal procedures in compliance with
1. Fiscal responsibility act
2. Procurement act and
3. Audit act.

Whereas the loan request in question failed to comply with the principles in the stated acts they only said the loan will be used as a budget support” he emphasised.