The Kwara State Government has accused former governors Bukola Saraki and Abdulfatah Ahmed over the seizure of two government properties in choice area in Abuja by the Access Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) due to the indebtedness of Shonga Farm Holdings.
This was made known in Ilorin at a press briefing jointly addressed by the Commissioner of Justice, Salman Jawondo; Commissioner for Communication, Bode Towoju; Special Adviser to the Governor on Political Matters, Lateef Alakawa; Special Adviser to the Governor on Political Communication, Bashir Adigun; and Group Managing Director of Harmony Holdings, Abdullahi AbdulMajeed.
Shonga farm was established by the administration of former governor, Bukola Saraki under its agriculture revolution program. 17,000 hectares of land were earmarked for the farm project out of which 13,000 hectares of land were allocated to the white Zimbabwean farmers.
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The then state government seized the opportunity of the situation in Zimbabwe, where white farmers were being displaced by the Zimbabwean government, by offering white Zimbabwean farmers an opportunity to farm in Kwara.
Jawondo alongside other government officials lamented that more than a cumulative sum of N5 billions of public funds and loans secured with the government as guarantor have been sunk into the agricultural project with no traces of any dividends to the people of the state.
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“The reason AMCON took over the Kwara properties in Abuja is to recover the bad loans that the Farm owes a consortium of banks that invested in it dating back to 2007 because the Shonga Farm Holdings could not pay back on the agreed timeline.
The commissioner of Justice explained that the government has not taken legal action against the perpetrators of the alleged fraud, because crimes perpetrated through fronts and companies take years to unravel.
