Niger State Governor, Alhaji Abubakar Sani Bello, on Friday disclosed that the immediate past administration of Dr. Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu was characterized with fraud, saying most of the projects and programmes reportedly carried out by the administration could not be traced.
The governor added that members of the Peoples Democratic Party, government functionaries and private individuals feasted on state resources for eight years the party was in power in the state.
Bello, who stated these in a state broadcast to mark his 100 days in office, said there were several questionable transactions the former administration must account for.
The discrepancies, according to him, were discovered by the financial management committee set up by his administration, lamenting that one of such discrepancies was discovered in the state and local government joint account where a massive fraud was perpetrated.
Bello said, “We instituted a financial management committee to look at all major financial transactions of the state and local governments from May 2007 to May 2015. The committee has made substantial progress and the findings are quite revealing.
“A review of the operations of some of the major bank accounts of the state and the Local Government Joint Accounts Allocation Committee (JAAC) over the last eight years revealed some despicable patterns such as huge cash withdrawals by government officials, private individuals and PDP officials and members.
“For example, an examination of only two bank accounts of Government House shows more than N70billion cash withdrawals by a few officials who must explain the purpose for which the withdrawals were made. The operation of the joint account was characterized by diversions and a misapplication of huge funds especially those paid to Ward Development Projects and 10km roads’ projects.
“For instance, out of the total sum of over N11billion paid to the accounts of Ward Development Projects, the relevant officials of the ministry of local government could not account for N2.86billion, while N 613million was spent on ‘ghost’ vehicles and N675.50million was said to be lent to Ministry of Finance where the funds cannot be traced.”
