Member of his Staff or any Staff of the Taraba State Government, who would one way or another be involved in the Bulk Purchase of this Stationeries and Office Equipment, as barely Three Days remained to the End of the Year. Further, it limited or narrowed down the Options the Government of Taraba State would normally have exercised in procuring the Stationeries and Office Equipment. The Taraba State Government was only left with a Singular Viable Mode of Procurement, which was, the Direct Labour. Even with this Narrow Mode of Procurement, Procedures still had to be complied with. Further, a General Request for Bulk Purchase would certainly have an EMANATING SOURCE, which procedurally would start off from within his own Ministry, starting from the bottom through to him, as Commissioner and then to the Governor for his Approval. This is to ensure a Checking Mechanism is in place, allowing only for Genuine Requests to pass through to the Governor of the State and will no doubt whittle down Phantom Requests or Requests fashioned from the Commissioner’s own cognition. On the face of Page 3 of this Memo in Exhibit CC, the Defendant, as Governor minuted his Approval initially to the Honourable Commissioner of Finance but struck “HCF” off, and instead minuted and signed the Approval to the Permanent Secretary “P/Sec” as follows, “APPROVAL IS FOR TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILLION NAIRA ONLY (N250, 000, 000.00)”, and he signed it on the 30th of December 2014. This is to say, he gave his Blessing to the Memo barely a Day before the End of the Year, precisely on the 30th of December 2004. Alhaji Abubakar Tutare, the Commissioner of Finance, who testified as PW10, was shown the Memo and he stated in his Examination in Chief that: “On the 20th of December 2005, a Memo to the tune of Two Hundred and Fifty Million Naira (N250, 000, 000) was raised by the Ministry of Finance to the Defendant, as Governor, for Direct Purchase of Stationeries and the Approval was granted on the 30th of December 2005.” He corrected the conflict in the dates by stating that he was diabetic and his memory would not be accurate. However, he confirmed that this was the Memo 81

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