Dele Olaosebikan
THE First Prosecution Witness (PW1) in the trial of former governor of Kwara State, Alhaji Abdulfatah Ahmed, and his Commissioner for Finance, Ademola Banu on Monday, 17 February 2025, told Justice Mahmud Abdulgafar of the state High Court sitting in Ilorin that the first defendant (ex-governor Lawal) diverted to personal use funds earmarked for Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) projects in the state.
The Ilorin Zonal Directorate of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is prosecuting both defendants on a 12-count charge of mismanagement and misappropriation of public funds to the tune of N5.78 billion.
The witness, Abubakar Hassan, an Assistant Director of Finance at UBEC, while being led in evidence by prosecution counsel, Rotimi Jacobs (SAN), disclosed that a total of 51 UBEC projects approved under the 2013 Action Plan were abandoned under former Governor Ahmed due to a lack of funds.
The projects, discovered by the UBEC Project Monitoring Committee in the state were abandoned despite UBEC’s approval for citing them in the state and funds for their execution, released. According to the witness, the state government under the leadership of the defendant mismanaged the funds.
“My lord, the Projects Monitoring Committee conducted investigations and found that many projects were either unexecuted or abandoned. We wrote to the then Kwara State governor, Alhaji Abdulfatah Ahmed, in May 2018 to address these issues. The projects were categorised into three: Early Care Education, Primary School Education, and Junior Secondary School Education, but we received no response,” he said.
He further explained that the abandoned projects were scattered all through the 16 local government areas of the state and further revealed that on 6 January 2015, the sum of N1 billion had to be loaned from the 2013 UBEC Matching Grant account with Skye Bank Plc to pay staff salaries and pensions.
Addressing the utilisation of the 2014 and 2015 State Counterpart Funds, he stated that the Kwara SUBEB illegally withdrew the sum of Nine Billion, Eight Hundred and Twenty-Nine Million, Fifty-Four Thousand, Fifty-Four, Six Kobo (N1,829,054,054.06) from funds lodged on 18 February 2016, stating that the withdrawn funds qualified the state to access the Federal Government’s UBE Matching Grants.
“State Matching Grants are not permitted to be borrowed or utilised for any purpose outside the approved action plan. The objectives of UBEC were undermined due to these infractions and the failure to implement the Action Plan,” he said.
Worried by the diversion of the funds, the witness disclosed that UBEC also had to send a letter of invitation to the state government, requesting documentary evidence on the Kwara State government’s use of UBEC funds.
Attached to the invite were documents showing the lodgment of funds from UBEC to the Kwara SUBEB.
Justice Abdulgafar adjourned the matter till 18 February 2025, for cross-examination of the witness.
Eighteen-Eleven Media