N5.78b trial: EFCC ‘s witness can’t show letter by Banu for borrowing from SUBEB fund

By Stephen Oladele

Much could not be achieved on Monday in the criminal proceeding involving former Kwara State Governor, Abdulfatah Ahmed and his former commissioner for finance, Ademola Banu as defendants and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) as the prosecution as the next winess of the prosecution was not available.

Ahmed and Banu are being prosecuted over alleged diversion of over N5.78 billion fund of the State Universal Basic Education Board  (SUBEB) for payment of salary of the state civil servants.

After the briefly done rounding off of cross examination of  prosecution witness 6, Stanley Ujilibo, whose cross examination in the last sitting on June 17  was continued on Monday, the prosecution counsel, Adebisi Adeniyi, told the court that the next witness, a banker, was unavailable because he was testifying in another court and requested for an adjournment to another date with the assurance that the witness would be present at the time.

However, before the request for adjournment, Ujilibo, while being crossed examined by Kamaldeen Ajibade (SAN), the lead counsel to the first defendant, Ahmed, told the court he would not know if one Ayoola Idowu, a civil servant that petitioned the EFCC about the alleged diversion benefited from the fund as salary payment to him.

Ajibade had asked him wether Idowu as a civil servant  benefitted from the fund when it was allegedly used to pay salary of the civil servants.

Ujilibo, an operative of the EFCC, had testified at the previous sitting that former Governor Ahmed approved a request to obtain a N1 billion loan from the state’s SUBEB counterpart fund to offset workers’ salaries. According to him, the approval followed a request by the then Commissioner for Finance, Ademola Banu, a move he described as being contrary to the statutory purpose for which the SUBEB funds were released.

Also, the witness when being cross-examined by Gboyega Oyewole (SAN), the counsel for the second defendant, Banu, could not point out a document that shows that the second defendant as the commissioner for finance wrote for borrowing money from the SUBEB fund.

When he was asked to go through the exhibits before the court he pointed out a letter written by the second defendant to the first defendant requesting that the state should pay its counterpart fund to the SUBEB fund.

When the second defendant’s counsel said the letter did not talk about borrowing but payment of fund the witness pointed out another letter from the exhibits whick talks about borrowing but which was signed by someone else and not the second defendant.

The request of the prosecution counsel for adjournment was not opposed by the counsel for the first and second defendants making Justice Mahmud Abdulgafar of the court to adjourn the proceeding to November 9th.