The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETfund) has denied a claim that it paid the sum of N325 million to the Adamawa State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for running the party’s activities between October 2023 and 2024.
APC Woman Leader in the state, Mrs. Patricia Yakubu had in a petition addressed to the National Security Adviser, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu asserted that TETFund was paying the APC in the state to the tune of N25 million monthly from October 2023.
Mrs Yakubu, in the petition, accused the state party leadership of monumental fraud and misappropriation of party funds totalling N500 million.
Among them, the Adamawa APC Woman Leader said the party received a total N325 million from TETFund during the said period, using contract sales in General Murtala Mohammed College (GMMC), Yola and Federal College of Education, Yola.
“The money is meant for running day to day party activities in and outside the state” Yakubu said while also saying, “There was this time they collected three months at once totaling Seventy-Five Million naira (₦75,000,000.00). Sometimes, these monies are paid through BDCs,” Mrs Yakubu alleged.
Responding to the allegation in a statement, Director, Public Affairs of TETFund, Abdulmumin Oniyangi stated unequivocally that the insinuation contained in the petition was “not only preposterous and totally false.”
Oniyangi said the claim was also a great disservice to the Nation, “that an individual of such political standing, would engage in such frivolity without an iota of evidence.
“To further buttress the futility of the allegations, we wish to state in clear terms that General Murtala Mohammed College (GMMC), Yola where TETFund contracts are alleged to have been sold is not a Beneficiary Institution of TETFund.”
Similarly, the TETFund Director added that FCE Yola which is a beneficiary institution of TETFund is solely responsible for engagement of its contractors in line with the policy of the Fund.
“The Fund has observed that allegations of this nature, sponsored by desperate individuals, have become the trend in recent times but will not be deterred in carrying out its statutory mandate which remains funding for the rehabilitation, restoration and consolidation of tertiary education in Nigeria.”
He stressed that the Fund has undertaken this mandate steadily over the years both as ETF and TETFund and with renewed vigour under the leadership of President Bola Tinubu.
“We advise that detractors get their facts right so as to avoid misleading the public,” the statement added.