Seven commissioners, who served in the administration of former governor of Kaduna State, Nasir el-Rufai, have dismissed a report of the House of Assembly the N423,115,028,072.88 was allegedly siphoned during his tenure between 2015 and 2023.
The former commissioners also alleged that Governor Uba Sani and the lawmakers were on a witch-hunt mission.
They told newsmen during a press conference in Abuja, yesterday, that el-Rufa’i was not given the opportunity to defend himself during the investigation. They also disclosed the Assembly has refused to give him a certified true copy of its proceedings which was adopted on June 5, 2024.
Former commissioner of Environment and later, Education, Jafaru Sani, who chaired the event, said the Assembly’s investigative report is riddled with inaccuracies and instances of falsification and misrepresentation of the testimonies provided by invited officials.
“There is a dissonance between its recommendations and the testimonies the ad-hoc committee heard. It bears restating that its conclusions seem to have been decided beforehand and were insulated from the facts. The report is an attempt to inflict maximum reputational damage on certain selected members of the Kaduna State Executive Council, Class of 2015 to 2023; a litany of smears dressed up as an investigative report.
“Till date, the Kaduna State House of Assembly has not responded to formal requests for the certified true copy of the report it adopted at its sitting on June 5, 2024.
“Why would the House of Assembly be unable to officially release the report to persons who were summoned by its ad-hoc committee which took their testimonies and then proceeded to write baseless recommendations?”
He was in company with Hafsat Baba (Ministry of Human Services and Social Development); Thomas Gyang (Public Works and Infrastructure, Planning and Budget Commission); Bashir Saidu (Ministry of Finance; former chief of staff); Ibrahim Husaini (Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Environment); Aisha Dikko (Ministry of Justice); Fausat Ibikunle (Ministry of Housing and Urban Development) and Idris Nyam (Ministry of Business, Innovation and Technology, Ministry of Sports Development).
The former commissioners also dismissed the Assembly’s probe and its final report as a tissue of lies.
“Scrutiny of the report easily shows that the ad-hoc committee is inconsistent with the figures it cited as the Domestic and Foreign Loans of the State. On Page 168, the committee claimed the total revenue that accrued to the Kaduna State Government between May 2015 and May 2023 is N1,497,682,993.375 and $758,141,699.
“Perhaps, they meant N1.497 trillion, since the N1.497 billion written in the report is too puny to have been the state government revenues over eight years.
“Even given this correction, the report cites a contrary figure on Page 137. The table on Page 137, entitled: ‘Summary of Receipt and Inflow to the state and local governments from May 2015 to May 2023’, puts the total revenue accruing to Kaduna State (State and 23 local governments) over those eight years at N1,236,080,191,080.72. Column 2 of that table puts N424,416,878,102.20 as the local government share of the revenues.
“The state government’s share of revenues is put at N811,663,310,000 on Page 138. Yet, by the time they got to Page 168, the committee had adopted a different figure of N1,497,682,993.375, without saying how and why.
“These contradictory figures within the same report illustrate the lack of consistency, credibility and reliability of the so-called findings,” they said.
