again, there is no evidence of these before the Court. If souvenirs were
bought as stated, then it is expected that the evidence of the items bought
should have been furnished to the Accounts Office to retire the Funds and
evidence of these should also have been tendered before the Court.
All in all, the Court finds that from the Evidence of the Witnesses in this
regard, the President actually Visited Taraba State on the 12th of April 2007,
and the Visit was said to be successful. The Success or otherwise of the Visit
has little or nothing to do with the Expenditure of the State’s Funds and the
Accountability expected from its Chief Executive.
It is utterly ridiculous that the Sum of One Hundred, and One Million Naira
(N101, 000, 000.00) was expended for the Visit of One Man for a One Day
Event. What if the Visit was to extend for Three Days? This is a valid question
to be asked, as in One Day the Defendant Approved the Entire Budget
appropriated to the Taraba State Government House for One Year, and even
exceeded it by One Million Naira (N1, 000, 000.00). The Evidence remained
unchallenged that for any Excess Funds over the Budgetary Allocation for a
given Year, any Department/Agency of Government, had to apply to the
State House of Assembly for a Supplementary Budget to be passed. There
was no Evidence that this was done.
The Court recollects the Contradictory Statements made by the Defendant as
regards the when and where the Memos were made. The Defendant
attributed this inconsistency to the conditions in which his Statement was
written and then told the Court that he would not stand by his Statement.
It is also clear that Money from the State has to come from either the
Commissioner for Finance in the Ministry of Finance, or from the Office of
the Accountant General of the State. Going by the Date on the Petition, the
12th of June 2006 admitted as Exhibit B, written by PW1, Hauwa Kulu
Usman, it is clear that by the Dates of the Approvals of the Memos on the 11th
of April 2007 in Exhibits O1, O2 and O3, both the Defendant and the
Commissioner of Finance were already under EFCC Investigation. In fact, as
far back as 2005, Alhaji Tutare, the Commissioner of Finance had written
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