EFCC arrest Governor Ganduje's wife after she refuses to honour their invitation for questioning

ECONOMIC and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) officials have arrested the wife of the Kano State governor Hafsat Ganduje  over a bribery and land fraud case reported by her son after she refused to honour a request to visit their offices.

Mrs Ganduje had been invited to report to the EFCC’s Abuja offices on September 13 but she did not appear, leading to the agency threatening to arrest her. Despite this, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje's wife then travelled to the UK to attend the graduation ceremony of her son and following her return, she was arrested.

Investigators are questioning Mrs Ganduje over allegations contained in a petition submitted by her son Abdulazeez. In the petition, Abdulazeez had suggested there is a pattern of corruptly using family access to power for private enrichment.

Governor Ganduje himself has been involved in a corruption-related scandal. He is still struggling to untangle himself from the public perception that he is a corrupt public servant since 2018 when Daily Nigerian published a series of videos showing the governor collecting bribes 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. He was offered at least N35m as facilitation commission.