BY ANKELI EMMANUEL, SOKOTO
Worried by the lingering claims by former governor, Attahiru Dalhatu Bafarawa of leaving thirteen billion naira in the coffers of Sokoto state government when he left office in 2007, former Accountant General of the state
Aminu Abdullahi has said it is untrue, adding that Bafarawa only left three hundred million, Eight Hundred and Sixty Seven Thousand, Nine Hundred and Ninty Four Naira, Seventy Seven Kobo. (301,867,994,77).
Abdullahi who expressed concerns in a statement he personally signed further challenged the former governor to disclose the sources of the said 13bn and which account it was deposited.
While disapproving the claim by the former governor, Bafarawa as a glaring attempt to whip up sentiment and score cheap political mileage, the Accountant General wondered why such narrative is still being repeated when the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has proven it to be false.
According to the state Accountant General, ”This claim coming 17 years after he left office is not only mischievous but a scheme to play with the intelligence of the people and to whip up sentiments for cheap political gains. Every reasonable person is aware that the claim by Bafarawa had been proven to be false and perceived as a fraudulent statement to deceive the people”.
Continuing, Aminu Abdullahi, the former Accountant General, said Bafarawa’s successor, Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko set up an investigative panel under the leadership of Alhaji Namadina Abdurrahman to find out where the said N13B was lodged and the result was that the money was nowhere to be found.
Abdullahi also decried that after Bafarawa’s tenure as governor, his successor, Senator Wamakko Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko never inherited any N13bn rather a number of unfinished projects, and refused touching the any money left behind by Bafarawa in the state accounts till e ended his two terms.
“”The EFCC had followed the case and filed 147 count charge which included corruption, illegal sales of government shares, misappropriation, criminal breach of trust, receiving stolen property and unauthorized payment committed between 2003 and 2007, cases which resulted into confiscating some of Bafarawa’s assets in 2010.