Kano Gov Ganduje’s ‘Bribe’ Video: Civil Society Coalition Alleges Blackmail

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Gov. Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State.

The Kano state governor Abdullahi Ganduje Thursday reacted to a report by an online media platform alleging that he was involved in graft.

The news paltform, New Nigerian, based in Abuja, reported that Ganduje received up to $5 million in a series of questionable deals with state contractors.

The platform said it is in possession of three footages that showed how the governor was receiving bribes from state contractors. One of the videos showed a person, which it claimed to be the governor, roll nearly $3 million under his cloth.

But Ganduje denied being the person in the video.

“We wish to state that there is no iota of truth to these allegations and if indeed there is any such alleged video, it is at best cloned,” the Kano state commissioner for information, Malam Muhammad Garba said in a statement.

“The government of Kano state is taking this matter seriously, and will exploit every appropriate and legal avenue to ensure that it gets to the root of the matter and the perpetrators are brought to book”.

Meanwhile, the news platform held in their report that its graphics expert, who was also invited to a secret meeting to ascertain whether the videos were genuine, confirmed that they were not doctored.

According to New Nigerian, a representative from a reputable international anti-corruption agency, who was also furnished with the clips for authentication, confirmed that it was genuine.

“Going by the analysis we made on conversation and the graphics, we concluded that the voice matched the subject matter’s voice and the images are unmistakably his,” the agency’s representative said.

Garba, however, insisted that his principal is a victim of blackmail from the opposition parties in order to deface the Kano State APC-led government. The state is a stronghold of President Muhammadu Buhari.

“Evidently, Kano being the stronghold of the APC and expected to produce the highest votes in the
upcoming general elections is a target of campaign of calumny.”

Ganduje, who is running for a second term on the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), was also backed by a coalition of civil society organisations who also dismissed the report.

Spokespersons of the coalition, Isa Mahmud of PAIR and Okoronkwo Chuks, said the report was an act of desperation intent on causing confusion in the APC by wild allegations.

The coalition stressed that after rigorous investigations, the coalition established that the report was the handiwork of Rabiu Kwankwaso and his Kwankwasiyya Movement aimed at stoking crisis in the North West.

“It is a matter of fact that the publisher of the Daily Nigerian, Jafar Jafar, is a former aide to Senator Kwankwaso as governor and still works for him.

“Having failed woefully at his futile attempt to be president, he is back to spinning cheap tales and aiming to foment trouble in the North West.

“For the avoidance of doubt, the infantile effort, like all others in the past, will amount to absolutely nothing.”