The 16 chairmen of local government areas in Kwara state who were recently suspended from office by the state governor, Mallam AbdulRhman AbdulRasaq, were Friday detained at the Ilorin Zonal office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
A statement by EFCC’s Head of media and publicity, Mr Wilson Uwujaren, said the embattled chairmen were detained over alleged misappropriation of part of four billion naira loan they secured and ten percent of state internally generated revenue.
The local government chairmen include; Risikat Opakunle, Saidu Yaru Musa, Umar Belle, Ayeni Dallas, Fatai Adeniyi Garba, Lah Abdulmumeen, Raliat Funmi Salau, Aminat Omodara, Muyiwa Oladipo.
Others are; Oladipo Omole, Abdullahi Abubakar Bata, Saka Eleyele, Lateef Gbadamosi, Oni Adebayo Joseph, Omokanye Joshua Olatunji and Jibril Salihu.
It was gathered that the council chiefs after securing the controversial loans held a meeting and decided that N100 million be shared among themselves.
The suspects had on the 7th of February 2018 wrote a N4 billion loan request to the Ilorin Sterling Bank Manager in order to pay the salary arrears of teachers of the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) ,local government staff and the local government pensioners while the provisions for N100million for council chairmen was not appropriated in the loan request.
The embattled chairmen were also accused of diverting monthly 10 percent of the internally generated revenue for their personal use which was paid direct into their personal accounts against the financial regulations.
“All the suspects while undergoing interrogation by the operatives of the commission admitted that N100 was shared from the loan and also received ten percent of the internally generated revenue.
“They are pleading with the EFCC to give them time to pay back what they benefited from government’s money,” the statement said.
As at the time of filing this report, The embattled Kwara politicians were still in the custody of the EFCC and will be charged to court”, said the EFCC’ spokes person.
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