Budget Padding: More Than 1,000 Supporters Dump Deputy Speaker, Lasun

Many loyalists and supporters of the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Lasun Yusuff, numbering more than 1,000, today formally disowned the embattled parliamentarian at a well-attended mass rally held in his hometown, Ilobu, headquarters of Irepodun Local Government Area of Osun State.

This is even as pressure has continued to be mounted on him to deliver the southwest region in the efforts of the leadership to mobilise signatures in support of the Speaker, Hon. Yakubu Dogara and others accused of padding the budget by the former Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, Hon. Abdulmumin Jibrin.

Leading the decampees yesterday, former Supervisory Councilor for Works in the local government, Hon. Afeez Adebiyi from Ward 3, said their decision to pitch their tents with the deputy speaker against the decision of the party has denied them a lot of opportunities within the party, and that the character of their erstwhile leader has not justified their decision.

Other leaders of the team also included both Mr. Adebowale Yusuff and Azif Azeez from Ward 5, Lasun Yusuff’s ward and Mustafa Musibau from Ward 1. They pleaded with the party to forgive them for joining the Yusuff-led faction of the APC.

The crowd, which danced round three major communities of Ilobu, Ifon and Erin Osun, all in the Irepodun/Orolu/Olorunda/Osogbo Federal Constituency where Yusuff represents, first assembled at the constituency office of the deputy speaker to boo few of his aides available.

The development had also denied the camp of the deputy speaker the avenue to hold its monthly meeting which he was said to have arrived the town for on Saturday but some of the members who had come for his faction’s meeting were said to have been booed out of the venue by the decampees.

Receiving them yesterday, the former Chairman of the APC in the local Government, Hon. Abayomi Oyedeji, who was also a close ally of Yusuff, said the local government was not known for anti-party activities as displayed by the deputy speaker during the election to the leadership of the National Assembly, and that the action of Yusuff had painted the party in the community in bad light.

He assured the decampees of equal treatment, saying justice and fairness will be maintained by the party’s mainstream and appealed to others willing to retrace their steps and return to the party.

Also in attendance at the grand reception was the Member of the House of Assembly representing the Irepodun/Orolu State Constituency, Hon. Kamil Oyedele and the party’s Legal Adviser, Mr. Goke Ogunsola, among other party stalwarts.