The people who used to work with Nasir El-Rufai when he was the governor of Kaduna State said that the new governor, Uba Sani, is using money from loans that were arranged by the old government.
The old team said it was not fair for the Kaduna State House of Assembly to blame the old governor for wasting N423 billion. They also said it was not true that the El-Rufai government took all the loan money before they left office in May 2023.
This information was in a statement shared by many people who used to work as commissioners. Some of them are Jafaru Sani (Environment), Hafsat Baba (Human Services), Thomas Gyang (Public Works), Bashir Saidu (Finance), Ibrahim Husaini (Agriculture), Aisha Dikko (Justice), Fausat Ibikunle (Housing), and Idris Nyam (Business and Technology).
Earlier, the Kaduna State House of Assembly made a special group to check all the money, loans, and projects from the old government. They found that El-Rufai and some of his team took N423 billion from the state. The Assembly then asked the new governor to get security people to look into this.
But Sani, the ex-commissioner for environment, said the amount and number of loans mentioned in the report were too high. He said some loans still had not been given out before May 2023. For example, a $280 million loan for a farming project had not started by then.
Sani also explained that the old government worked hard to get good plans and loans for the state. He said it wasn’t true that all the loans were taken before they left. For example, a $130.7 million loan for buses came from the French Development Agency, not the African Development Bank, and none of this money was taken before they left.
Other loans that the new government is now using include a $20 million loan for farm projects and a $62.8 million loan to help kids who don’t go to school.
Sani said some other loans mentioned in the report were not fully taken. For instance, only $2 million was received for the semi-arid landscape project before the old government left, and this money was saved for the new government.
The report also said that $494 million was given, which is not true. Only $23.88 million was received for a project to help girls learn by May 2023. By December 2022, this project had helped fix 110 schools and improve 550 more, and also started life skills programs in 19 high schools.
The old team said that an additional $352,855 was given in June 2023 for water and sanitation projects after the El-Rufai team had left.