By Joe Adedeji, Ilorin.
The Ilorin High Court trying the immediate past Chairperson of the Kwara State Scholarship Board was told today how signatures of students were forged to defraud them.
The Chairperson, Alhaja Fatimoh Yusuf, Board Executive Secretary, Fatai Lamidi and Accountant, Stephen Ajewole were being tried in court over alleged fraud by the EFCC.
A witness, Abdulkareem Ishmael, a former President of Kwara State Students Union, Sokoto State Polytechnic told the court that officials of the Board forged 326 signatures of students to steal.
The three of them were facing a seven count charge before Justice Sikiru Oyinloye of the State High Court over their alleged involvement in bursary fraud to the tune of N50 million.
Ismail in his evidence in Chief alleged that only fifty Students of Sokoto State Polytechnic benefited from the controversial bursary award from Kwara State Government as against claims by the officials that they had paid 356 students.
He said on the Scholarship Board officials arrived which was during a strike period, a head count, less than two hundred Students were on ground out of which the board officials disqualified saying only 50 of the students were eligible.
” I was among the fifty persons that benefited from the bursary, they never asked us to append our signatures and I was not allowed to append mine. signature,
“I was invited by the EFCC last year, I was shown the last of beneficiaries submitted by the Board and I discovered that there were many irregularities”, he said.
He stated further that; ” On the list shown me at the EFCC Office, three hundred and twenty six Students were paid as claimed by the Scholarship board, but the list was not a true reflection of what happened, only fifty Students were paid ”
” The list submitted to the Scholarship board officials prior to the payment contained more details of Students bio -data but the one generated by the Board was doctored ” Ismail said
The presiding Judge after discharging the witness adjourned the case till 23rd of March 2020 for the continuation of the trial.