AN investigator with the Ilorin zonal office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Stanley Ujilibo, on Wednesday told a state high court sitting in Ilorin that no money was directly released to the former Kwara State governor, Abdulfatah Ahmed, in the allegations of diversion of ₦5.78 billion of the State Universal Basic Education (SUBEB) fund.
News Point Nigeria reports that EFCC investigator also said that neither the former governor nor the Universal Basic Education Board (UBEC) was a signatory to the KWSUBEB account.
Ahmed and his ex-commissioner for Finance, Demola Banu, have been standing trial over the alleged diversion of over ₦5 billion in SUBEB funds in the state.
However, Ujilibo, who is also the sixth prosecution witness (PW6) and a member of the EFCC detective team, made the disclosure under cross-examination by counsel to the first defendant, Abdulrasaq Gold (SAN), during the continuation of the trial.
He, however, said that the former governor gave approval for a request to secure a ₦1 billion loan from the state’s counterpart fund of SUBEB for payment of workers’ salaries.
The approval, he explained, was granted following a request by the second defendant, who was the former governor’s erstwhile commissioner for Finance, Alhaji Demola Banu, for the loan to pay workers’ salaries, which, according to him, was contrary to the original purposes for which the SUBEB fund was meant.
Ujilibo also said the commission did not beam its search light on the former governor’s personal account because the petition before the commission did not link the diverted fund to his personal account.
He also said that none of the accounting officers of the Kwara State Primary Education Board (SUBEB) is standing trial before the court over the matter, saying they are “witnesses”.
While in the middle of the cross-examination, counsel to the first defendant made an application for an adjournment of the trial to enable him to request the statement made by the first defendant before the EFCC in Abuja and the Asset Declaration forms which he had filled, to enable him to cross-examine the PW6 on the documents.
His application was, however, opposed by counsel to the EFCC, Adebisi Adeniyi.
He said the defendant had enough time to do that since the commencement of the trial in 2024.
“My lord, we are constrained to oppose to this application. The last time this matter came up before your lordship was on 16th February. It was to come in April and was adjourned to April 20th and 21st for continuation of the trial. The first defendant had enough time to request any document to cross-examine the witness,” he said.
In his ruling on the application, the presiding judge, Justice Mahmud Abdulgafar, refused the application.
He, however, said that the “learned counsel is at liberty to recall the witnesses for cross-examination”.
The cross-examination continued for a while before the trial was subsequently adjourned to July 27, 2027, after the counsel to the defendant told the court that he was done.