• Don’t politicise governance, Kano Patriots tell Yusuf
• APC slams gov over anti-graft crusade
Kano State High Court has fixed April 17, 2024 for the arraignment of the National Chairman, All Progressives Congress (APC), Dr Abdullahi Ganduje, over his involvement in the dollar video clip.
Kano government had filed eight charges bordering on dollar bribery, misappropriation and diversion of funds running into billions of naira against the former state governor.
The case is coming almost the same period the state government constituted two panels of inquiry, one to investigate the misappropriation of assets by Ganduje’s administration and the other to investigate political violence and missing persons, still under his watch.
One of the counts alleged that Ganduje, in 2016, corruptly asked for and received $200,000 from a contractor, being kickback on a public contract. By the act, Ganduje is accused of engaging in official corruption punishable under Section 22 of the Kano State Public Complaints and Anti-corruption Commission Law 2008 (as amended), Law No. 2 of 2009.
Ganduje is also accused of collecting $213,000 generated from people and entities seeking or holding the execution of Kano government contract for the remodelling of the Kantin Kwari textile market, as a bribe through one of the contractors in 2017.
The former governor’s wife and others will be arraigned for culpability in those transactions.
BUT Kano Patriots has called on Governor Abba Yusuf to guard against politicising the issues relating to the governance of Kano State.
President of Kano Patriots, Aliyu Mohammed, enjoined Governor Yusuf to concentrate on the wellbeing of the citizenry in Kano, rather than dissipate energy on fighting his political adversaries.
The group likened the face-off between the governor and his predecessor, Ganduje, to that of “a man using his legs to pursue crickets while carrying an elephant on his head.”
It stated: “The problem with some of our leaders is that they do not know the difference between politics and governance, and they find it difficult, most times, to separate the two.”
“Yusuf, of all people, should know that the era of politics is gone and the earlier he settles down with the business of governance, the better for him and the Kano people. It is very wrong to be playing active politics when the whole world looks unto you to deliver on governance.”
The group, therefore, urged the governor to close ranks with Ganduje, reconcile him with Kwankwaso, and unite all stakeholders in Kano, for the sake of peace, love, unity and growth of the state.
THE opposition APC in the state is not happy with the governor, whom it accused of abandoning his primary assignment to serve the people to assume the position of an anti-corruption crusader.
Senior Special Assistant on Public Enlightenment to the APC National Chairman, Oliver Okpala, in a statement in Abuja, wondered how a state governor, on assumption of office, could resort to setting up of investigation panel to probe only one person, his predecessor.
He said: “This action he has resorted to for the past eight months, while other governors are busy providing public infrastructure in their states. One is, therefore, tempted to conclude that his present attacks and actions against Ganduje are a clear case of bias and vendetta.”
