Stephen Olufemi Oni 
The trial of the former Governor of Kwara State, Alhaji Abdulfatah Ahmed, and his Commissioner for Finance, Ademola Banu, over the alleged misappropriation of Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) funds to the tune of N5.78 billion, has continued before Justice Mahmud Abdulgafar of the Kwara State High Court sitting in Ilorin.
The former governor and his finance commissioner were accused of conspiring to divert funds meant for the payment of teachers’ salaries under the Kwara State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), the provision of basic infrastructure for primary and junior secondary schools, and security initiatives in the state.
They were arraigned by the Ilorin Zonal Directorate of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on October 21, 2024. However, both defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges.
During yesterday’s hearing, the prosecution’s first witness (PW1), Abubakar Hassan, an Assistant Director of Finance at UBEC, while being led in evidence by counsel to the EFCC, Rotimi Jacobs (SAN), testified that a total of 51 projects approved under the 2013 action plan were abandoned due to a lack of funds.
According to Hassan, the UBEC project monitoring committee discovered that, despite the approval for these projects, the state government under the leadership of erstwhile governor mismanaged the funds.
Hassan said: “My Lord, the Projects Monitoring Exercise conducted investigations and found that many projects were either unexecuted or abandoned.
“We wrote to the thenKwara State Governor, Alhaji Abdulfatah Ahmed, in May 2018 to address these issues, but we received no response.” He further explained that the abandoned projects spanned all 16 Local Government Areas of Kwara State.
