By Olusegun Olanrewaju
The Kano State Governor, Abba Yusuf, has said his administration would leave no stone unturned in pursuing the dollar video scandal of the National Chairman of All Progressives Congress (APC) and former governor of the state, Dr Abdullahi Ganduje, to a logical conclusion.
In a statement made available to journalists yesterday by the Director-General, Media and Publicity, Kano Government House, Sanusi Bature Dawakin-Tofa, the governor has requested the release of the forensic investigation conducted by the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFFC) on ‘Gandollar saga’ in 2018, for public consumption.
Ganduje had on Friday while reacting to the decision of the Kano State Government to file criminal charges against him over alleged bribery of $413,000 and N1.38bn respectively, warned Governor Yusuf to concentrate on bringing good governance to his people instead of embarking on a futile attempt to drag his name through the mud.
However, Governor Yusuf in his statement yesterday lamented that apart from inheriting liability and debt running into over N300bn from Ganduje’s administration allegedly due to reckless financial misconduct, the immediate past governor sold almost all the property and assets to Ganduje, members of his family, and his cronies.
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He further stated that it is also glaring that Ganduje’s administration was associated with massive corruption, nepotism, and intimidation of innocent citizens of Kano state, hence the reason for setting up two Judicial Commission of Inquiry”
The governor was quoted in the statement to have reminded Ganduje how his gross penchant for corruption brought shame and disgrace to the good people of Kano, insisting that no amount of media campaign would hinder the process of bringing him (Ganduje) to book on the glaring cases of corruption filed against him.
“Ganduje could yet shamelessly muster the courage to defend himself in the media, despite the embarrassing video clip where he was caught, red-handed, stocking his large agbada pockets with dollars, a supposed kickback from a contractor; and other corrupt practices massively associated with his eight-year tenure during which he ran the affairs of Kano state as a family enterprise.
“We wish to reaffirm the present administration’s resolve and readiness to make anyone found guilty of corruption face the full wrath of the law for their intentional wrongdoings,” the statement added.
On the allegations of poor governance in Kano despite the increase in federal allocation, Governor Yusuf revealed that his administration is still struggling to recover from a state of bankruptcy Ganduje plunged the state in the last eight years.
Yusuf added that for someone to believe the lies that our administration is a failure for justifying the huge resources in less than a year, means that the person has never been to Kano to see things for himself, or the person is an enemy of the state who simply want to malign our administration.
He revealed that his government in Kano recorded life-changing initiatives for the good people of Kano state, part of which include the foreign post-graduate scholarship for first-class students, payment of tuition fees, and entrance examinations for hundreds of thousands of university and secondary school students, among others.
“Additionally, Governor Abba Yusuf has taken a bold step in paying the backlog of pension gratuity for the state pensioners who were denied their entitlements by Ganduje’s administration in the last eight years. We completed the abandoned five kilometre roads in some Local Government Areas.
“Governor Abba Yusuf has also distributed four batches of palliatives to hundreds of thousands of Kano residents to cushion the effects of fuel subsidy removal and increase in the price of foodstuff. Kano residents still remembered how Ganduje’s administration kept food items meant to be distributed to the masses during COVID-19, under the sun and in the rain until they completely spoiled while other items were only brought out for distribution during the 2023 elections, after a greater percentage of the items were diverted and sold by his foot-soldiers,” it added.
