The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Thursday quizzed some management staff of the Kwara State Scholarship Board over alleged N150 million bursary fraud.
The staff interrogated by the operatives of the commission include the Chairperson of Kwara Scholarship Board, Hajia Fatimoh Yusuf, Executive Secretary of the Board, Fatai Lamidi and the Board’s Accountant, Stephen Ajewole among others.
It was gathered that the Kwara state government in 2017 and 2018 released the sum of one hundred and fifty million naira as bursary allowances for ten thousand students who are indigenes of the state in various tertiary institutions.
It was also gathered that the board did not pay up to 4000 students but fraudulently converted the remaining sum to personal use.
The petitioners, who are students of some higher institutions of learning had alleged that their names appeared as beneficiaries of bursary allowances at the board but never received the money.
During an interrogation with the operatives of the Commission, the students who sighted their names, matriculation numbers and signatures became very angry, insisting that the names and matriculation numbers were correct but their signatures were forged.
They claimed not to have been the original beneficiaries of the controversial bursary allowance despite their particulars on the scholarship board documents.