Former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, has accused his successor, Governor Uba Sani, of fabricating financial figures to discredit his administration. Speaking through his former commissioners at a press conference in Abuja on Tuesday, El-Rufai dismissed the financial report that alleged his administration diverted N423,115,028,072.88, calling it baseless and politically motivated.

The former commissioners, who served under El-Rufai from 2015 to 2023, criticized the report released by the Kaduna State House of Assembly on June 5, 2024. They described the figures as exaggerated and unfounded, intended to tarnish El-Rufai’s reputation without providing concrete evidence of corruption.

“The report fails to specify where the money was allegedly taken from, how it was taken, and by whom,” the commissioners stated. “This is a clear case of the Ad-hoc Committee engaging in speculative accounting to manufacture a scandal.”

They pointed out inconsistencies within the report itself, noting that the State Government’s share of revenues was cited as N811,663,310,000 on one page, but later changed to N1,497,682,993,375 without explanation. “These contradictions highlight the lack of credibility and reliability of the findings,” they added.

The commissioners further criticized Governor Sani for using his brother to draft the report, calling it unethical. They also questioned the omission of details about the CBN-sponsored Anchor Borrowers Scheme, suggesting that the report selectively ignored certain facts.

“The House of Assembly has shown no interest in investigating the beneficiaries of the Anchor Borrowers Programme, despite Kaduna State having one of the largest borrowings under this scheme,” they said. “When a former Commissioner of Agriculture testified, his name and testimony were conspicuously absent from the report.”

Additionally, the commissioners accused the authors of the report of having conflicts of interest, specifically mentioning the Speaker of the Kaduna State House of Assembly, who had previously been investigated for untaxed and unexplained income. “Despite these conflicts, he presided over the session that adopted the Ad-hoc Committee’s recommendations,” they noted.

In conclusion, El-Rufai’s team denounced the report as a malicious attempt to undermine their achievements, particularly highlighting that the current administration’s showcased projects were funded by loans secured during El-Rufai’s tenure. They demanded transparency and a fair reassessment of the allegations.

“The report reeks of malice and raises serious questions about the motives behind it,” the commissioners stated. “We will not accept this breach of our fundamental rights or allow our reputations to be unjustly tarnished.”