Ganduje Gate: Another Anti-Corruption Case that was swept under the Carpet

One of the factors that have kept Nigeria behind is corruption and this has become a menace plaguing the West Africa country.

Several corruption cases have been swept under the carpet due to lack of concrete evidence against the perpetrators. In recent times the country was able to get some justice against corrupt officers as some were found guilty and prosecuted but there is still a lot of work to do.

A few weeks ago the governor of Kano state, Umar Ganduje was accused of bribe allegation after a video of him collecting kickbacks from contractors surfaced online.

Not long after the video became a trending topic in the country it was revealed that an investigative journalist, Ja’afar Ja’afar was the one who risked his life and that of his family to get the videos. According to the journalist, he had 15 videos in which the governor collected a total of $5 million from several contractors as cutbacks.

Ja’afar Ja’afar was invited by the Kano state House of Assembly for questioning and he honored the invitation damning all odds. After Ja’afar’s invitation, the Kano state House of Assembly set up a panel to investigate the allegation. An invitation was sent to the governor by the panel but he didn’t attend instead he sent one of his commissioners, Mohamed Garba the commissioner for Information to represent him.

Soon after the panel was set up, the Kano state High Court ordered the panel to stop the investigation into the allegation and Ja’afar Ja’afar was also ordered to stop the release of video evidence against the governor. The governor even sued him for N3 billion for defamation of character.

The governor has since then received backings from the president, President Buhari who called him a responsible governor while the allegation was still fresh. He was named the governor of the year by the Telegraph newspaper. The EFCC also claimed they have no power to investigate the governor as he is covered by immunity clause.