2ND ORDINARY MEETING OF THE ABH HALL ASSEMBLY: YEAR’S BUDGET FROM EXECUTIVE COUNCIL GETS REJECTED

The second ordinary meeting of the Alexander Brown Hall Assembly commenced at exactly 8:19 pm at Famewo Common Room (FCR) with exactly 22 honourables in attendance and no member of the executive Council sighted. The house clerk, Hon. Onyuike, took the roll call and read the minutes of the last meeting. Following this, one of the honourables requested that a copy of the minutes of the previous meeting be made available to the hounourables via their WhatsApp group chat.

It is customary that the year plan is read before the budget is presented but, the speaker, Hon. Omotayo Goodluck, thought it wiser for the executive budget to be read first considering that the year plan was subject to change following its review. Hence, the motion was passed. It is worthy of note that an hour had progressed into the sitting and only 4 executives including the Hall Chairman were present at the sitting.

When the Information Minister, Olabisi Olaoluwa, was called upon to present his budget, the Hall Chairman, Ayotunde Oni, requested to present the whole document since the budget was a joint effort spearheaded by him. This sparked mixed reactions amongst the honourables as it is customary that each executive come forward to podium to present and defend their respective budgets. Some members of the house were in favour of sticking with the norm while others pleaded that for the sake of moving forward the Hall Chairman should be granted his request.

After some back and forth it was finally agreed upon by the house for the Hall Chairman to present the year’s budget on behalf of the executive Council and for any questions had to be directed to and answered by the executive concerned. Prior to this moment, the Hall Chairman had informed the house that the budget was incomplete and missing the budget of four offices. For this, the entire executive council had been sent to the disciplinary committee.

Despite having an incomplete budget the Hall Chairman was still called upon to present the available budget. Upon getting to the podium, several Honourables after looking through the document felt the budget was not good enough to be presented to the house because the budget lacked a suitable letterhead and proper documentation as there were several blank spaces noted. It was also noted that the document lacked serial arrangement and more strangely, it was missing the signature of the Hall Secretary. Many honourables expressed their displeasure over the unpreparedness of the executive council evidenced by the outlook of the document; others thought it a huge disrespect.

The Hall Chairman in defence explained that for several of his members school had gotten in the way as they had to prepare for major exams and tests. He also explained that the executive council had been doing a lot out-of-pocket. Explaining how the accommodation process also got in the way of preparing the budget he appealed to the house to see things from his perspective.

Following this turn of events and after some deliberation, two motions were moved; Hon. Oladele made the first to review the budget but ratify it on another night, seconded by Hon. Adenuga. The second motion was moved by Hon. Okei to present the budget later and ratify it on that date. Hon. Iwasepeletun seconded this. The second motion was passed after a quick vote by show of hands. Hon. Michael moved another motion to also move the reading of the year plan to the next meeting, which Hon. Elabor seconded.

During the ‘any other business’ segment, Hon. Okei mentioned the lack of spaces available for the 2k23 class. She explained that most of her classmates had been chased out of their rooms by the male members of the 2k24 class and asked if the executive council were powerless to help their case as they were preparing for their MB exams. To this, the Hall Chairman stated that the Hall executives were at their wits’ end in trying their best to help the 2k23 class, ceding to the fact that they may be powerless as the number of male members in their class significantly outweighed the number of male spaces left for allocation.

This meeting which had earlier seen the co-option of Mosope Odufuwa and Aruwanjoye Praise as floor representatives for A1 and C2 constituencies respectively finally ended at 12:44 am. At the end of the meeting it was apparent that perhaps both the assembly members and the Hall executives need more time and a better understanding of the constitution in order to get this new administration up and running on time.