The commission of inquiry set up by the Katsina State Governor, Aminu Masari, has declared that ex-governor, Ibrahim Shema, looted over N50.5bn from the treasury.
The chairman of the commission, Ado Muhammed, made the disclosure while submitting the report to governor Masari.
Responding, Masari vowed that “Now that the commission of inquiry has established that over N50.5bn was looted, we shall use all legal means to recover the money.”
“The looted funds belong to the people of Katsina State and we are ready to follow due process in the courts to retrieve the money from the officials of the past administration.
“The people of Katsina State need the money back so that it can be used to provide social amnesties to them.
“We are determined to retrieve the funds from those that looted same and no amount of legal huddles will prevent us from collecting the state’s money.
“The commission of inquiry has used legal procedures to unearth the financial scandals from the documents that were presented before it.
“The state government will use the facts that were presented before the commission of inquiry to prosecute those that committed the offence.
“The Katsina State Government has no intention to leave the money. All those involved will have to return the money,” Governor Masari said.
The governor said those involved had tried to stop the commission from sitting and caused the disqualification of Justice Mohammed Surajo, the former Chairman of the commission, by an appeal court in Kaduna.
Masari said the state government was determined to continue with the sitting of the commission “and the results had emerged and we are ready to continue with the procedure of recovering the money.’’
Comments