Linus Oota, Lafia
Nasarawa House of Assembly has directed Governor Abdullahi Sule to immediately sack the Secretary to the State Government, Ahmed Aliyu Tijjani for allegedly exhibiting high level of corruption while serving as Commissioner for Education in the immediate past administration.
Tijjani , the Assembly alleged, embezzled N248.5m out of N1billion he collected in 2018 for renovation of public secondary schools across the state without the work being done as expected.
Deliberating on the report of the ad hoc committee, which indicted him of corruption, majority of lawmakers voted for his immediate removal from office as SSG.
The motion for his removal was moved by Hon Mohammed Alkali (APC Lafia North) and seconded by Hon Mohammed Agah Muluku (APC Nasarawa Eggon East).
About 19 out of 22 members that attended the sitting supported the removal of the SSG.
But Majority Leader Hon Tanko Tunga (APC Awe north) and Hon Mohammed Ukpoku (APC Udege/Loko) opposed the motion.
Speaker Balarabe Abdullahi ruled in favour of the majority, directing the Governor to immediately sack the SSG from his Government.
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The Assembly had in March 2020 commenced the investigation of N1billion contract awarded to renovate and fence public secondary schools in the state while Tijjani was Commissioner for Education.
NATION gathered that during the investigation, the Assembly invited the SSG on three different occassions, who admitted collecting the N1b vote but couldn’t satisfactorily explain how it was expended.
Chairman of the ad-hoc committee, Hon Daniel Ogazi, said the SSG displayed blatant inefficiency, incompetency and ineffectiveness in the performance of his official duties.
According to him: “The committee hereby recommend that the former commissioner and now SSG having accepted to take responsibility of any deeds or misdeeds regarding the contract then under his watch, should be asked to refund all unaccounted funds amounting to N248, 484, 556,60 to the coffers of Nasarawa state government.
“The funds meant for monitoring and evaluation is for the purpose of projects supervision to ensure quality and timely completion covering the entire period of the assignment.
“However , the former commissioner Aliyu Tijjani now SSG took this money and fails to perform the functions hence he should refund the money to government coffers.”
The SSG didn’t pick calls or text messages for his reaction by The Nation.
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