The immediate-past governor of Kwara State, Abdulfatah Ahmed, has said he was never interrogated by operatives of the EFCC for allegedly diverting N9 billion from public coffers while in charge of the state.

Mr Ahmed said this on Monday evening in a post via his verified Twitter handle.

He was reacting to a PREMIUM TIMES report published on Saturday that listed corruption cases involving some former governors that seemed to have been forgotten by the EFCC .

Mr Ahmed, a two-term former governor of Kwara State, and his predecessor, Bukola Saraki, were on the list collated by this newspaper. The list were collated based on recent news reports of arrests and interrogations of the mentioned names.

Reacting in his tweet on Monday, Mr Ahmed added that he was never arrested by the EFCC, but that he only honoured an invitation by the commission to give his own side of the story to a corruption allegation levelled against him as Commissioner of Finance of Kwara State and later as governor of the state.

“Your report below wrongly claimed EFCC arrested me for alleged diversion of N9b. On the contrary, I answered the agency’s invitation to clarify lawful transactions during my tenure as Commissioner for Finance and, later, Governor of Kwara State,” Mr Ahmed’s tweet partly reads.

“I was neither accused of any wrongdoing nor questioned about any N9b transaction as your report inaccurately asserted. For reference, below is my earlier tweet issued to correct the false reports published following the EFCC invitation last year”.

In May of last year, the former governor was reported to have been grilled and detained by EFCC operatives.

He was only released after spending two nights in custody of the EFCC.

Previous denial

Although the details of the case were never announced, sources had informed this newspaper that it was in connection with how funds to the tune of about N9billion were diverted from the coffers of the Kwara state government during his tenure as governor of Kwara State between 2011 and 2019.

Mr Ahmed, denying the allegation, had said in a tweet, “In response to an invitation by the commission via a letter dated 26th April 2021, I voluntarily visited the EFCC in Abuja yesterday about a complaint about a contract awarded by Kwara State Government while I was the State Commissioner for Finance. I was not accused of any wrongdoing. Neither was I questioned about any N9b transaction. I have since been granted bail.”

In response to an invitation by the commission via a letter dated 26th April 2021, I voluntarily visited the EFCC in Abuja yesterday with regard to a complaint about a contract awarded by Kwara State Government while I was State the Commissioner for Finance.

— Alh Abdulfatah Ahmed (@AbdulfataAhmed) May 18, 2021

The administration of Mr Ahmed, a political godson of a former Senate President, Mr Saraki, who is also a former governor of Kwara State, has been under the searchlight of the EFCC for some time.

In January last year, the commission arraigned the Commissioner for Finance under Mr Ahmed’s administration on charges of N411million money laundering.

The anti-graft agency alleged that the ex-commissioner, Ademola Banu, committed the crime in 2018 by conspiring with others to launder the said sum belonging to the Kwara State Government.