The Kano State Public Complaints and Anti-Corruption Commission (PCACC) says it has invited former governor Abdullahi Ganduje for questioning over a video that went viral in 2017, where he was suspected to be receiving bundles of dollar notes offered as bribe from a contractor.
Chairman of the Commission, Muhuyi Magaji Rimingado, in a statement on Thursday, said the investigation is reopened at the expiration of Ganduje’s executive immunity.
Speaking on Channels TV’s Lunch Time Politics on Thursday, Rimingado disclosed that the panel had sent a letter of invitation to the former governor, inviting him to come before it and provide any information necessary for the current investigation.
According to him, the agency adheres to the legal maxim of “innocent until proven guilty” and believes the probe will finally allow the former governor to clear his name in the scandal, and it will apply to the ex-governor as it does to everyone.
“I have signed a letter to invite him for questioning at the Commission next week because this is what the law says, and we will provide ample opportunity for him to defend himself,” he said.
In the meantime, a group known as the Coalition for Northern Civil Society Group has denounced the recent efforts to look into the dollar videos, alleging that they were planned in conjunction with the Kano State government to bring the former governor into disrepute and destroy any chance the ex-governor had of obtaining a position in the Federal Government led by President Bola Tinubu.
Mohammad Shuaibu, the secretary of the Northern group who also made an appearance on the Channels TV programme on Thursday, noted that since the video’s release in 2018, the focus has been solely on the alleged “receiver” and that the “giver” of the alleged bribery has not been made public.
