By Aliyu M Aliyu
Barely less than 72 hours to the proposed local government elections scheduled for Saturday 26, June, the Jigawa state Independent electoral commission is in dilemma following alleged diversion of N378m.
Hotpen reports that the electoral body had submitted a proposal to the state government requesting the sum of N600m as their budget expenditure for the successful conduct of the exercise.
It was reported that, the state government pledged to share the expenditure among themselves 60-40, the electoral body will provide 60% and the state government to give balance of 40%.
In this situation, JISIEC tasked all the 27 local governments to contribute the 60% share, it was learnt that each local council released the sum of N14m in two installments to the commission.
Further investigation has revealed that after the successful release of the fund, the commission allegedly awarded various contracts of election materials among themselves as well as paid other outstanding arrears.
Trouble started when the commission approached the state governor, Badaru Abubakar for the release of 40% fund, he insisted that the commission has to explained how they spent the N378m (60%) collected from the 27 LGA’s.
It was gathered that since Monday the commission embarked on series of meeting on how to recover the fund inorder to meet with the governor’s directive and compliance to collect the balance payment of 40%.
A visit to the headquarters of the electoral commission has indicated that the acting chairman of the commission, Adamu Ibrahim a close associate of governor Badaru Abubakar, the secretary of the commission and all commissioners were in closed door meeting for the whole week.
Effort by a team of Journalists to hear from the chairman of the commission proved abortive after waiting for 2 consecutive hours, but the Public Relations Officer of the commission, Habibu Adamu Babura later briefed the press saying all the allegations level against the commission wasn’t true.
Babura explained that arrangement are on top gear for the successful conduct of the election scheduled for Saturday 26th.