Several residents of Enugu State, Thursday, took over the Enugu House of Assembly Complex protesting against what they called plans by the Assembly to approve a loan of N11 billion for the State government.
The angry residents, led by the APC guber candidate in the state, Chief Okey Ezea, called on the lawmakers to in the interest of the people of the state reject the proposal.
Speaking on behalf of the group, Ezea said; “These young men and women are here to demonstrate their rejection of the planned approval by the House of a loan of N11 billion for state government that has come to the end of its term.
“We are saying that before now if you go to the Debt Management office, Enugu State as at January 31st 2015 owes N12.061bn and somebody wants to take another loan of N11bn. When will Enugu people complete the payment of such loan? The lives of our children are at stake; hospitals are not working in Enugu State, the educational system is not working in Enugu State all these children are paying N150, 000 in ESUT and IMT.
“Please we want to tell you that our people in Enugu State say no to this loan otherwise this is not how a legislature passes bills; you people cannot surreptitiously sit down here and approve N11bn, a loan which Enugu people will continue to pay till we die.
“We are urging you to remain the conscience of the society; we are urging you to even go back to your constituencies to find out whether your constituents approve of this move otherwise it will be on record that this particular House has done things against the interest of the people.”
Responding, the Speaker, Eugene odo commended the peaceful nature of the demonstration pointing out that every indigene of Enugu State has the right to air his view or opinion just as he noted that the Assembly represents the 24 constituencies of Enugu State and accordingly we have been representing to the best of our ability.
“The fact is that we are running an open government; there is a request of-course to approve this by the executive. So, the House of Assembly whose responsibility it is to deliberate and decided whether to approve or not unfortunately has not done so. “We equally want to thank you for airing your views on the matter. We hope the position of your representatives will reflect the wish of the respective constituencies. So we are not hiding to do our job; what we are doing is very transparent”.
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