N100million involving the immediate past chairperson of Kwara State
Scholarship Board, Hajia Fatimoh Yusuf and two other principal officers
of the Board resumed on Tuesday, January 26, 2021 with a prosecution
witness, Lawal Abdulwahab, telling Justice Sikiru Oyinloye of the Kwara
State High Court sitting in Ilorin that, he never saw the list of the
beneficiaries of the 2018 bursary allowances.
The Ilorin Zonal Office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission,
EFCC, is prosecuting Hajia Yusuf, alongside the Executive Secretary of
the Board, Fatai Lamidi and its Accountant, Ajewole Stephen, on a seven
count charge bordering on stealing and fraudulent diversion of public
funds.
The three officers of the Board allegedly diverted state funds to the
tune of N100million earmarked by government of the Kwara State in 2017
and 2018 for payment of bursary allowances to students of the state in
various tertiary institutions.
Testifying, Abdulwahab stated that his bank was commissioned to be in
charge of payment of the allowances to respective beneficiaries of the
scheme, but was never provided with the list.
Abdulwahab, who was the Head of Operations in a new generation bank
testified as PW 8.
He said: “My Lord, sometime in 2018, the management of the Scholarship
Board approached our bank for cheque discounting in the payment of
bursary allowances to students of Kwara origin studying in various
tertiary institutions. The bank managing director and I held a meeting
with the management of Scholarship Board where we agreed to charge the
sum of N100 (one hundred naira) from each of the cheque as interest. We
were to pay cash of N5, 000 (five thousand naira only) to ten thousand
Students.
The PW8 told the court that officials of the bank followed personnel of
the Board to Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, LAUTECH,
Ogbomoso, but had what he described as ‘terrible experience’.
According to him, the place was rowdy and insecure. Abdulwahab stated
that a report of what happened was forwarded to the bank following which
the bank threatened to back out, a decision he said led to another
arrangement of providing cash without the officials of the bank
following them to field.
Testifying further, the witness narrated how the bank provided cash of
N5, 000 to ten thousand students and how the Scholarship Board’s
management issued them cheque in return. He told the court that the
cheques were not forged.
Under cross-examination, Abdulwahab insisted that he neither sighted the
list of beneficiaries at the Office of the Kwara State Scholarship Board
nor at the EFCC where he was invited to give statement on the matter.
The witness stated that all that transpired between his bank and the
management of the Kwara State Scholarship Board were normal banking
standards, which followed the due process.
The prosecution witness further stressed the fact that his bank’s cash
officials no longer followed personnel of the Scholarship Board to the
field after that experience at LAUTECH, for security reasons.
After his testimonies, Justice Oyinloye discharged the witness and
adjourned till February 17, 2021 for further hearing.