By Abiola Olawale
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Wednesday presented a witness before Justice Mahmud Abdulgafar of the Kwara State High sitting in Ilorin, Kwara State, over the ongoing trial of a former governor of Kwara State, Abdulfatah Ahmed.
Appearing before the court, the witness brought forward by the EFCC narrated how N5 billion meant to execute projects at primary and junior secondary schools between 2013 and 2015 was misappropriated during the administration of Ahmed.
The witness, identified as Abubakar Hassan, an assistant director of finance at the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), said the commission was established in 2004 to ensure that no Nigerian child is denied basic education. He said basic education started from primary school to junior secondary school.
According to him, UBEC only gets allocations after the Kwara State Government has prepared action plans (budgets), defended the projects, and got approval from the Kwara State House of Assembly.
Testifying further, the witness stated that the Kwara State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), prepared and submitted an action plan for 2013. It was defended, and approval was given to execute certain contracts in compliance with the action plan.
Hassan narrated: “The Commission made lodgment for 2013, 2014 and 2015. Kwara State got a matching grant of about N2 billion for 2013, N876 million was released for 2014, while they got N982 million in 2015, totalling about N5 billion.
“Implementation of the 2013 Action Plan had already commenced, and contractors were already mobilised to work at the site but surprisingly, during our project monitoring exercise,e we discovered that the monies meant for the project (2013) had been diverted by the Kwara SUBEB. We discovered that about N2 billion naira was diverted.”
Following this discovery, the witness said that the report of the project monitoring committee was sent to the Kwara SUBEB, asking them to comply with the recommendations of the committee, but there was no response. Hence, the Commission wrote to the banks to return the 2014 and 2015 funds paid to the State.
He said there were no activities for 2016, 2017, and 2018 due to the failure of the state to comply with its earlier recommendations about the diverted funds.
Hassan further stated that the responsibility of spending UBEC grants rested solely on SUBEB while the State Governor or anyone outside SUBEB has no dealing, directly or indirectly, in spending the fund.
Meanwhile, after the presentation of evidence, Justice Abdulgafar adjourned court hearing to February 17, 2025.
It would be recalled that Ahmed was governor of Kwara State, located in North Central geopolitical zone between May 2011 and May 2019 before he handed over to Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq of Kwara State.
The EFCC had filed a 14-count charge against Ahmed, and a former Commissioner of Finance, Mr Ademola Banu. In the charges, the EFCC accused Ahmed and Banu of an alleged involvement in a N5.78 billion fraud.
The duo have also been arraigned before a Kwara State High Court presided by Justice Mahmud Abdulgafar.
The duo were charged with alleged diversion and misappropriation of public funds meant for the execution of some projects in the state.
