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Akinwande Soji-Ojo
A Kano State High Court has fixed April 17 for the arraignment of the immediate past governor of the state and national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje, on bribery charges.
Ganduje will be arraigned alongside his wife, Hafsat, son, Umar and five others on eight counts bordering on $413,000 and N1.38 billion bribery.
The Kano State Government said it had assembled 15 witnesses to testify against them.
Also listed as defendants were Jibrilla Muhammad, Lamash Properties Ltd, Safari Textiles Ltd and Lesage General Enterprises.
Governor Abba Yusuf had on assumption of office accused Ganduje of misappropriating public funds and allocating plots of land to some members of his immediate family.
In 2018, Daily Nigerian, an online newspaper, published a video of Ganduje allegedly receiving bundles of dollars from contractors, which he stuffed into the pocket of his cloth.
The newspaper said Ganduje requested $5 million as a bribe from the contractors who recorded the video.
In 2023, the Kano State Public Complaints and Anti-Corruption Commission (PCACC) invited Ganduje for questioning over the video.
The former governor did not honour the invitation and instead instituted a suit against the agency.
In March, a Federal High Court in Kano stopped the agency from inviting or questioning Ganduje over the bribery allegations.
The court ruled that the agency lacks the power to invite or investigate Ganduje over the allegations.
Abdullahi Liman, the presiding judge, said the alleged infraction is a federal offence that cannot be prosecuted by the state anti-graft agency.
On Monday, Kano State Governor, Yusuf, urged the EFCC to release the result of its probe into the alleged dollar bribery video involving Ganduje.
Yusuf, in a statement by his spokesperson, Sanusi Tofa, asked Ganduje to prepare to face his trial instead of talking about non-existent failure in the current administration.
Reacting, the Senior Special Assistant on Public Enlightenment to Ganduje, Chief Oliver Okpala, described the move by the Kano government as an after-thought, insisting that the matter was in the jurisdiction of the Federal Government.
“I am surprised at the said charge, which is coming like an afterthought. However, I am aware that the Federal High Court sitting in Kano recently gave judgement on the same issue, where it gave exclusive reserve to federal agencies to prosecute such matters after investigation, if there is prima facie evidence of committing the offences alleged.
“I will simply urge those concerned to refer to the said judgement of the Federal High Court and take a cue from it so as to be well guided, in their attempt to prosecute, so that public funds will not be dissipated without achieving any success; more so to avoid what will be termed an abuse of court process.”