The trial of former Kwara State Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed and his Finance Commissioner, Ademola Banu, continued on Wednesday before Justice Mahmud Abdulgafar of the Kwara State High Court in Ilorin.
The duo faces charges of alleged misappropriation and theft of public funds amounting to ₦5.78 billion.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) alleges that the funds, intended for teacher salaries under the Kwara State Universal Basic Education Board (UBEC) and other public welfare projects, were misappropriated during Ahmed’s tenure as governor.
At the hearing, the EFCC called its first witness, Abubakar Hassan, an assistant director of finance at UBEC. Led by EFCC counsel Rotimi Jacobs (SAN), Hassan testified that approximately ₦5 billion meant for primary and junior secondary school projects was diverted between 2013 and 2015.
The defendants, who pleaded not guilty during their initial arraignment on October 21, 2024, had been granted bail as the case was adjourned for trial.
According to him, “The matching grant funds from the Universal Basic Education Commission is meant to provide certain infrastructural facilities for both students of primary and junior secondary schools. Such facilities include the construction of primary schools, provision of laboratories for students, construction of toilets, provision of water and sanitation and cultural education.”
Hassan stated that the Kwara State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) prepared and submitted an action plan for 2013 which was defended and received approval to execute certain contracts in compliance with the action plan.
“The Commission made lodgment for 2013, 2014 and 2015. Kwara State got matching grant of about N2billion for 2013, N876million was released for 2014 while they got N982million in 2015, totalling about N5billion,” the witness said.
He revealed that “Implementation of 2013 Action Plan had already commenced, contractors were already being mobilised to work at the site but surprisingly, during our project monitoring exercise, we discovered that the monies meant for the project (2013) had been diverted by the Kwara SUBEB. We discovered that about N2 billion 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 UBEC’s 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.
Justice Abdulgafar adjourned further hearing in the case till February 17, 2025.