Fraud: Kwara govt suspends five top officials of SUBEB

At least five senior officials of the Kwara State Universal Basic Education Board has suspended have been suspended on suspicion of fraud by the state government.

Reports revealed that the officials were implicated in the ongoing investigation of ghost workers and suspicious deductions of workers’ salary at the Kwara State Universal Basic Education Board.

The officials are the Permanent Secretary of the parastatal Bayo Audu Onimago; Director of Finance and Supply of SUBEB Husseni Ahmed; account officers Mujeeb Ibrahim and Oyerinde Fatai; and a staff of the Teaching Service Commission who doubled as the Chairman of the Nigerian Union of Teachers Toyin Saliu.

“The indefinite suspension is connected to some discoveries of alleged fraud in the parastatal by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. This is in line with the efforts of the AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq administration to cleanse the system, particularly at SUBEB where some startling discoveries have been made,” Murtala Olanrewaju, Commissioner for Communication, said in the statement.

“Salaries (and accounts) connected to the controversial names on the payroll have been flagged and suspended until the end of the exercise.”

The EFCC had two weeks ago uncovered about 1000 ghost workers in the state Universal Basic Education Board while it also discovered a fraud of N31 million meant for payment of 400 teachers which was allegedly traced to the officials of SUBEB and the officials of the State Council of the Nigeria Union of Teachers.

The NUT had on Monday suspended indefinitely the state chairman, Toyin Salihu, and three other officials of the union over their alleged involvement in the fraud.