The Attorney General of the State and Commissioner for Justice, Prof Oyelowo Oyewo, SAN, has said that cash trap disrupted the plans on, the finances of the state government
He said this while addressing the issue of garnishee order of the court on its Local Government accounts.
He said:
“The state is not in disobedience of the court order.
“Out of N4.2b, we have paid N1.5bn and we were also in the process of paying. But because of the cash swap policy, that disrupted our plans, so, the finances were disrupted and we could not.
“We are not in disobedience of the Court and we are going to go to the court, and also we observed that the Federal Capital Territory does not have jurisdiction on that matter, but these are matters that will be brought before the court.
“Oyo State is amenable to instalmental payment and even the judgements that were given during Ajimobi’s administration, we are still paying them. The obligation that the payment has is spread across the spectrum.
“At the end of the day, the court will give a hearing and we are amenable to instalmental payment and we are still going to go to court and quash the order.”
Recall that a federal capital territory (FCT) high court issued a garnishee order nisi against the Oyo government over N3.3 billion debt owed to former local government chairpersons and councillors sacked in the state in 2019
A. O. Ebong, the presiding judge, issued the order while ruling on a motion ex-parte marked FCT/HC/BW/M/238/2023 filed by the ex-chairpersons and councillors led by Bashorun Majeed, Bosun Ajuwon, and Idris Okusesi.
The affected banks are First Bank, United Bank for Africa (UBA), Wema Bank, and Zenith Bank.