Saraki Camp Replies Kwara State Govt Over Rejection Of Donation

Saraki Team Disagrees With Kwara Government

The Director of Project and Empowerment, Mandate Office of Senator Bukola Saraki, Otukoko Olayinka Ibrahim has insisted due process was followed in its constituency project implementation.

His assertion follows the earlier report that the Kwara State Government rejected a donation of instructional materials to some public schools by Dr. Bukola Saraki, former President of the Senate.

In rejecting the donation, the state government in a statement by Yakub Aliagan, spokesperson of the Ministry of Education and Human Capital Development had pointed out that it was not initially aware of the said donations, adding that such materials should not be emblazoned with personal pictures and logos as they were financed with public funds and should be reflected as such.

However, reacting to the state government’s position, Ibrahim said that “the distribution of the instructional materials is a constituency project facilitated by the immediate past Senate President Bukola Saraki through the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC).

“The constituency projects with UBEC is not limited to distribution of books, it include: Construction of classrooms, provision of Pupils and Teachers furniture, distribution of customized notebooks and textbooks (as it appears in the UBEC documents), distribution of Science Laboratory equipments, distribution of Mathematics kits, distribution of computer systems and generator sets.”

“During the needs assessment conducted by the mandate office, the office of Dr. Saraki collaborated with the LGEA offices which are directly in charge of basic schools across the four LGs for capturing of schools with basic infrastructure and material needs and same was communicated to UBEC by Dr. Saraki’s office for implementation.”

“That prior to distribution of the items, the mandate office informed the LGAs offices again to invite the selected schools, as shortlisted by UBEC to mandate for collection of “approved” items for their respective schools.”

“So to say the State Government is not aware of the distribution is will throw many unanswerable questions to one’s mind.”