Exposed: How Ex-Gov Jang Withdrew N5 Billion SUBEB Money-ICPC

Yakubu Busari

Mr. Taiwo Lorumyomi  of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offenses, ICPC, has told a Plateau State High court sitting in Jos, how former Governor Jonah David Jang ordered a former Government house cashier to massively withdraw N2 Billion from the Small and Medium Enterprises fund and N3 billion from Plateau State Universal Basic Education Board, PSUBEB which he said crippled public schools in Plateau.

 

Olorumyomi stated that he is an investigator with ICPC as said; “ I was assigned reports, compiled cases and files to give testimonies in court my superior sometimes in 2016.”

 

According to him, ICPC received a petition from Plateau state government over alleged abuse of office, embezzlement of public funds, misappropriation and several corrupt practices against the administration of the former Governor Jonah David Jang. This petition was assigned to my team headed by Mrs. Fatima Mohammed was she asked me to take over.

 

“However, in the course of my investigation, I wrote to Plateau state government and several other agencies in other to recover documents that would help to unravel the truth of the allegations mentioned in the petition.

 

“My Lord, after analyzing these documents, I did have the course to invite for interaction several persons that were found to have played one role , he added that among those invited include, Jonah David Jang, the first defendant ,Yusuf Pam ,the second defendant ,former Commissioner for Finance ,Accountant General of the state and the permanent secretary with many others .

 

The investigation revealed that Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, released about N2 billion to Plateau state government, the released was based on an MoU signed between the state government to be released to certain financial institutions for onward lending to micro-enterprises, small and medium enterprise from Plateau state at a reduced borrowing cost so that this enterprise can use it to support and expand their business, he explained.

 

Olorumyomi told court that in the MoU, CBN agreed with Plateau state government that the Plateau State Small and Medium Enterprises development agency will open an account whereby this N2 billion will be released from CBN to the state domiciled account to these accounts for the purpose of onward disbursement by the financial institutions that have registered with CBN for Micro, small medium enterprises.

 

“The financial institutions will see to the administration’s disbursement as well as to recover the N2 billion back from the beneficiaries as a loan. As an investigative arm of government, we discovered that the N2 billion didn’t go into Plateau state government small and medium account rather the money went to Plateau state Project account which negates the agreement between CBN, Plateau state.

 

“My Lord, we discovered at a time that the money was reversed back against the Plateau project account. We had the course to invite the commissioner, Accountant General, a permanent secretary who worked with Sen Jonah David Jang.

 

“In other to know how the N2 billion was disbursed to the beneficiaries, we sent invitations across to volunteers and after careful analysis, the support documents showed that the N2 billion was withdrawn in tranches from Plateau project account as classified expenditure and was cashed by the second defendant to the first defendant (Jang). We tried to know what he meant by classified expenditure from the Plateau state government, finance permanent secretary, others, but the documents reflected that the first defendant has the money.

 

“They said the first defendant is the only person that can explain on classified expenditure, so since they all agreed on the first defendant, we went further to find out from the state whether there are any policy documents that explain what is classified expenditure and how it should be disburse but we lay our hands on any of Plateau state official document that gives us anything like that.

 

“We now invited the first defendant, Jang he came and in his statement, to our surprise he has nothing like classified expenditure.

 

Olorumyomi told court that the Plateau state government money is still with the first defendant, Sen Jonah David Jang; furthermore, we discovered that about N3 billion was withdrawn from Plateau state Universal Basic Education Board, account and that the first defendant has directed that they should borrow from SUBEB; this money was withdrawn in tranches.

 

The first N2.079 billion, N700 million and N400 million all was withdrawn in tranches from Plateau state Universal BASIC education to be used as classified expenditure as borrowed funds where the money should have been used for renovations, Furnishings, and buildings of public schools.

 

The statement was made in ICPC headquarters by the first defendant as he identified the statement by the code and official stamp of ICPC.

 

Counsel to the first defendant Mike Ozekhome didn’t raise an objection to the first defendant, written statement and it was tender and marked as exhibit P21.

 

In a related development, the counsel to the 2nd defendant also didn’t object to the statement tendered but argued that the fresh N3 billion was not included in the witness statement of oaths so he drew the court attention.