The trial of a former Kwara State Governor, Alhaji Abdulfatah Ahmed, and his Commissioner for Finance, Ademola Banu, continued on Thursday, January 8, 2026, with the testimony of a key prosecution witness, Stanley Ujilibo.
The two defendants are standing trial before the Ilorin Zonal Directorate of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, over an alleged ₦5.78 billion fraud.
At the resumed hearing before Justice Mahmud Abdulgafar of the Kwara State High Court, Ilorin, Ujilibo, the sixth prosecution witness (PW6), told the court that during its investigation, the EFCC obtained bank statements of the Kwara State Government from Polaris Bank and Guaranty Trust Bank (GTBank).
While being led in evidence by Rotimi Jacobs, SAN, the witness said letters were written to the Managing Directors of the then Skye Bank, now Polaris Bank, and GTBank, requesting relevant statements of account.
“My Lord, we wrote to the then Skye Bank, now known as Polaris Bank, and Guaranty Trust Bank to request the statements of accounts of the Kwara State Government,” Ujilibo said.
He explained that the letters, dated August 1, 2025, were acknowledged by the banks, which later supplied the requested documents. The bank statements were subsequently tendered and admitted in evidence as exhibits.
The EFCC alleged that the defendants authorised the use of Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) matching grant funds to pay civil servants’ salaries, contrary to the purpose for which the funds were released.
According to the commission, the UBEC matching grants and counterpart funds, representing fifty per cent of the total allocation, were designated for the provision of basic infrastructure in primary and junior secondary schools across the sixteen local government areas of Kwara State.
At the previous sitting, a former Accountant-General of Kwara State, Suleiman Oluwadare Ishola, who served between 2013 and 2019, testified that the sum of ₦1 billion, being a UBEC matching grant, was borrowed by the Abdulfatah Ahmed administration in 2015 to pay salaries of civil servants and pensioners.
Continuing his testimony, Ujilibo told the court that the EFCC also received a petition from the Kwara State Government, which led to further correspondence with the Ministry of Finance and the Office of the Accountant-General during the investigation.
However, when the prosecution attempted to tender responses received from the Ministry of Finance and the Office of the Accountant-General, defence counsel, led by Kamaldeen Ajibade, raised an objection, arguing that the documents had not been properly highlighted for easy reference.
As a result, Justice Abdulgafar adjourned the case to February 16, 2026, for the continuation of the trial.
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