The wife of Kano State Governor Abdullahi Ganduje, Hafsat Ganduje, has been arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) after her son, Abdulazeez Ganduje, complain of his mother’s involvement in a land fraud.
According to Premium Times, Mrs Ganduje had earlier been invited to report to the EFCC’s Abuja headquarters on September 13, but she did not appear. The EFCC then threatened to arrest her. Sources close to her later said she travelled to the UK at the time to attend the graduation ceremony of one of her sons, the newspaper reported.
Premium Times said that a source who has the knowledge of the arrest but asked not to be identified, said “she was arrested yesterday (Monday) evening.”
Background ( culled from Premium Times)
Abdulazeez had dragged his mum, Hafsat Ganduje, to the EFCC, sources familiar with the matter said, suggesting a pattern of corruptly using family access to power for private enrichment.
Mr Ganduje, the governor, had previously been involved in a corruption-related scandal. He has struggled to untangle himself from the public perception that he is a corrupt public servant since 2018 when Daily Nigerian published a series of videos that showed the governor collecting money from a government contractor.
According to sources who saw Abdulazeez’s petition, he reported that he was approached by a property developer to help facilitate the acquisition of some plots of land in Kano with some hundreds of thousands of US dollars and at least 35 million naira as “facilitation commission”.
It was further learnt that Abdulazeez said he paid the sum in dollars to his mother, Mrs Ganduje.
“But three months later, (the property developer) discovered that the plots of land he wanted and had paid the first family for had been allocated to other buyers and he then requested to be refunded,” one source added.
