By Kolade Larewaju
ABEOKUTA – Factional Speaker of the Ogun State House of Assembly; Mr. Emmanuel Soyemi Coker today called the bluff of the Federal Government over the continued closure of the State House of Assembly and moved sitting to the Government House in Abeokuta to hold a session for the defense of the 2011 Appropriation Bill.

The House had been closed down on the instruction of the Presidency immediately after the sitting of a group of nine legislators, led by Coker, in the early hours of September 6, 2010 during which Speaker Tunji Egbetokun was removed and suspended along other 14 legislators.

Apparently to prevent a break down of law and other following the declaration by Egbetokun that the group of 15 legislators would also be convening a session of the house, the Presidency decided to shut down the House putting heavy security around the premises.

But without any announcement, the Group of 11 legislators led by Soyemi Coker yesterday began sitting at the Valley View Auditorium of the Government House in Abeokuta to take the budget defense of Ministries and Parastatals in preparation for the passage of the 2011 Appropriation Bill.

Coker explained that the Budget proposal had been received from Governor Olugbenga Daniel and that the House could not wait indefinitely for every member to be present before the commencement of deliberation on it.

He did not give the details of the budget forwarded to the House and when it was sent or received but explained to the Head of Ministries and Parastatals who were there to defend their budget why the House was sitting at the Government House.

He said “for the sake of clarity, let me say that this is the committee level of the defense of the 2011 budget as this is the general committee of the House. This is the committee stage of the session, you will come before us. This is the committee of the whole House. I want to thank the security agencies in the state; they have secured the complex up to this stage and because of the fact that going by the nature of our colleagues; we have to resort to coming here because we cannot allow the business of the state to suffer.

“We cannot wait until such a time when our colleagues feel it is convenient, we have to move the business of the state forward, hence, the reason why we are here today. With all assurances we have, our colleagues could not have such assurances. We are carrying on our duties and over sight functions; part of which is what we are transacting today; 2011 Budget, the committee room is right there, we will be calling you to look at the details of your ministries budget.

“We received the budget form His Excellency, we want to commend His Excellency for a job well done in spite of the situation in our state but at this same time, we want to appeal to him concerning the situation of roads across the state so that we put them in good shape before the end of our tenure”.

Asked what the size of the budget is, the Speaker said: “you will hear in due course”.