The Borno State House of Assembly has on Wednesday denied reports that its premises was sealed off by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over a purported N600 billion scam.
It was reported that members of the Borno Assembly fled when the EFCC operatives stormed the premises while the state APC chairman, Ali Dalori, was placed under house arrest.
But in a statement issued by its spokesman, Mustapha Alibe, the Borno House of Assembly said the story “was baseless and only reflects the deepest depth of yellow journalism ever witnessed in Nigeria”.
The statement read: “What actually happened was that a delegation of the House of Representatives Committee on Army visited Borno State on an assessment tour and visited the House of Assembly and the Governor’s Office as part of the tour to determine the level of rehabilitation work going on.
“The security men in the entourage cordoned off the road leading to the House of Assembly to guarantee the safety of the visitors-this was misinterpreted to mean the sealing off of the premises.
“It is unfortunate that while the three arms of the Borno State Government are working assiduously to bring succor to the troubled state, some disgruntled elements could be engaging in myopic and jaundiced yellow journalism to discredit the achievements recorded so far.
“With massive investments in the rehabilitation of Borno State and its people, one is left in no doubt that there is no way N600 billion could have been misappropriated in the state, whose revenue allocation is nowhere near this figure, needless to say that it is near impossible to collect internally generated revenue in a state that had been thrown into turmoil since 2009”.
