Kano State Governor, Abba Yusuf, has called upon the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to disclose the findings of its investigation into the purported dollar bribery video implicating the former governor, Abdullahi Ganduje.
In a statement released on Sunday by his spokesperson, Sanusi Tofa, Yusuf emphasized that Ganduje should focus on preparing for his trial instead of deflecting attention by criticizing the current administration.
“For whatever option, the Kano State Government would advise the acting National Chairman of APC to show cause why his name, that of his family, and the entire people of Kano should permanently be erased from the global embarrassment that the dollar video has generated.
“The administration of Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf emphasised that it would leave no stone unturned to pursue the dollar video scandal to a logical conclusion. He, however, requested the release of the forensic investigation conducted by the Economic and Financial Crime Commission on ‘Gandollar saga’ in 2018, for public consumption,” the statement said.
Tensions between Yusuf and Ganduje have escalated following Yusuf’s recent establishment of two investigative panels aimed at scrutinizing Ganduje’s eight-year tenure.
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Yusuf’s administration has additionally initiated legal proceedings against Ganduje, his wife Hafsat, son Umar, and five others.
Responding to these actions, Ganduje accused his predecessor of pursuing baseless allegations, dismissing the move as an attempt to divert attention from what he described as “ineffective governance” in Kano.
But in his Sunday statement, Yusuf insisted that “Ganduje presided over two unproductive tenures characterised with siphoning public resources, inability to cater for the needs of Kano’s population, nepotism and bloodshed that left many families in the mood of melancholy.
“Our eight months in office have remarkably outweighed Ganduje’s eight wasted years of political caricature and maladministration by all standards.”
Yusuf advised Ganduje to rather buckle up in defence of his battered image at the court, instead of further exposing his impunity in the media space.
“No amount of media campaign would hinder the process of bringing Ganduje to book on the glaring cases of corruption filed against him,” he said.
Yusuf said he was surprised “that Ganduje could yet muster the courage to defend himself in the media, despite the embarrassing video clip where you were caught, red-handed, stocking his large agbada pockets with dollars, a supposed kickback from a contractor; and other corrupt practices massively associated with your eight-year tenure during which you ran the affairs of Kano state as a family enterprise.
“We wish to reaffirm the present administration’s resolve and readiness to make Ganduje and his co-travellers face the full wrath of the law for their intentional wrongdoings,” he said.
The statement further recalled that Ganduje also claimed that the Kano Anti-corruption Agency’s latest plan to probe him on the dollar video and cases of money laundering was an act of disregard for the rule of law, citing the judgment of Justice A.M. Liman of the Federal High Court, Kano, which declared that only Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, as well as, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, have the constitutional powers to investigate him; but described such claims as frivilous and the cry of a dying dog.
On the allegations of poor governance in Kano despite the increase in federal allocation, Governor Yusuf said his administration was still struggling to recover from a state of bankruptcy Ganduje allegedly plunged the state in the last eight years.
“We wish to warn Ganduje to stop dragging the name of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu into his corruption saga, as we believe that our able and well respected President does not interfere in cases before the courts of competent jurisdiction, as we witnessed during our trying times at the Supreme Court when he allowed justice to prevail for the opposition parties.”
Source: Punch