…How she escaped sack
Kwara State Commissioner for Special Duties, Aisha Ahman Pategi, drew the first blood with the allegation by his supporters that N300m are withdrawn on a monthly basis from her erstwhile ministry’s account behind her.
Kwara commissioner
And naturally, that allegation heated up the polity.
However, today those preview to happenings within government circle are fighting back; they have decided to release damning allegations against the commissioner, which they say the governor had been putting up with in order not to rock the boat of governance.
The alleged revelation has further exposed her to embarrassment as she is now in the eye of the storm as fingers point in her direction for alleged official misconducts, including, unlawful borrowing, and influence peddling and other unprincipled allegation, which sources say may eventually lead to her exit from the cabinet of Governor AbdulRazak AbdulRahman.
As result of the unauthorised spending and borrowing, the governor recently extended an invitation to the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC), to look into the Ministry of Local Government and Chieftancy Affairs.
Insider accounts said she may soon be recommended for probe over sundry allegations of unapproved spending, bullying of her colleagues, and alleged unauthorised deductions of allowances meant for traditional rulers while she headed the ministry.
Investigations revealed that the flamboyant commissioner has been caught many times throwing her weight around as being close to the governor in order to allegedly extort people, something that once earned her reprimands from the governor.
“The commissioner has reportedly been cutting allowances due to traditional rulers and this has recently come to the attention of the governor who directed discreet probe into her activities. She was in fact reported by a first class traditional ruler,” a source in the Ministry of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs claimed.
Ahman Pategi was until her recent redeployment the Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs.
“She has also been accused of illegal and under the table employment rackets and unauthorised borrowings. For instance, during the last Sports Festival she had a bitter fight with her colleague in the Sports Ministry over her unauthorised borrowing of N2.5m from a bank purportedly for an activity already funded by the government. Nobody knows how she spent the money,” a source said.
“The woman has falsely been behaving like the powers behind the throne. Who among her colleagues has she not fought with in the cabinet? When the Governor got wind of her activities, he reportedly warned her to stop going around claiming to be what she is not as he would not hesitate to wield the stick against her if she persists. I think the last straw that almost broke her camel’s back was the way she rudely behaved to her colleague at the Finance Ministry because she would not approve a phantom training for her at N32m for local government staff. That one reportedly told her that the training is a good one but cannot be accommodated at a time of global economic crisis that salary payment at the local government is becoming an issue.”
Efforts to speak with the commissioner or any government official proved abortive as they neither picked their calls nor responded to text messages by this medium.
One of the sources said the governor almost sacked her three weeks ago but was urged to give her opportunities to repent after she was spoken to.
“Her worst sin is that she is fond of planting false stories against her colleagues in the cabinet. Go and ask her colleagues, whether male or female, how many of them she has not fought with. Until they started calling off her bluff after discovering that she was just peddling false influence, this woman was always going to other people’s ministries in the pretext of pitching ideas to them. Yet she gives the impression that she’s all in all. She gives the impression that she’s the best thing to happen to the cabinet when she is just a fluke,” another source said.
