Former Kwara State Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed alongside his then-Commissioner of Finance, Ademola Banu, allegedly connived to divert funds earmarked for 51 Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) projects in the state while they were in office, a prosecution witness told the Kwara State High Court in Ilorin on Monday.
Abubakar Hassan, an assistant director of finance at UBEC, appeared as the first prosecution witness to continue his testimony, which he started in December 2024, in the trial of the former governor and his co-defendant.
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In his earlier testimony, the witness told the court how the Mr Ahmed-led Kwara State Government allegedly misappropriated about N5 billion UBEC funds meant to execute projects at primary and junior secondary schools between 2013 and 2015, when Mr Ahmed was governor.
The duo of Mr Ahmed and Mr Banu are facing prosecution by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for alleged stealing and misappropriation of N5.78 billion in basic education funds during the former governor’s eight-year tenure.
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PREMIUM TIMES reported that the duo pleaded not guilty to the charges during their re-arraignment in October 2023.
A statement from the EFCC said the first prosecution witness further told the trial court on Monday that a total of 51 UBEC projects approved under the 2013 Action Plan were abandoned by the former Governor Ahmed’s administration.
Led in evidence by the prosecuting lawyer, Rotimi Jacobs, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Mr Hassan said the UBEC Project Monitoring Committee discovered the projects were abandoned despite UBEC’s approval for siting them in state and funds for their execution, released.
According to the witness, the state government led by Mr Ahmed 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 categorized 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.
He added that on 6 January 2015, UBEC had to loan N1 billion from the 2013 UBEC Matching Grant Account with Skye Bank Plc to pay staff’s salaries and pensions.
State Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEBs) receive funds from the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) based on a matching grant system, where UBEC allocates funds to each state based on their contribution, with the aim of improving basic education at the state level.
This means a state that fails to make contributions will not be able to access UBEC allocations.
In his earlier testimony last December, Mr Hassan said in his testimony that the Matching Grant Funds from UBEC were meant to provide certain infrastructural facilities such as construction of buildings for primary schools, provision of laboratories for students in junior secondary school.
He also said the money was meant for construction of toilets, provision of water and sanitation and cultural education in the primary and junior secondary schools.
Mr Hassan further told the court that the main objective of the UBEC, established in 2004, was to ensure that no Nigerian child is denied basic education. He said basic education started from primary school to junior secondary school.
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Testifying on Monday on the utilisation of the 2014 and 2015 State Counterpart Funds, Mr Hassan said the Kwara SUBEB illegally withdrew N1.8 billion (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 utilized 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.
The witness also said UBEC had to send a letter of invitation to the state government, requesting documentary evidence on the Kwara State Government’s use of UBEC funds.
The judge adjourned the matter until Tuesday for cross-examination of the witness.
