BREAKING: EFCC arrests Gov Ganduje’s wife

Emmanuel AmudaOctober 5, 2021

2 minutes read

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has arrested Hafsat Ganduje, the wife of Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State.

The anti-graft agency’s arrested the Kano first lady on Monday night over a bribery and land fraud case reported by her son, Abdualzeez.

The arrest comes weeks after she failed to honour the anti-graft agency’s invitation.

Newsflash Nigeria had earlier reported that the wife of Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano, Hafsat, had failed to report to the EFCC) on September 13, following an invitation by the anti-graft agency.

The wife of the governor was invited to answer questions from investigators working on allegations over a bribery and land fraud case reported by her son.

According to the report, her son Abdualzeez Ganduje alleged his mother for a bribery and land fraud case and using family access to power for private enrichment.

Mrs Ganduje was invited to report on Thursday, September 13 to the Abuja headquarters of the EFCC.

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.

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 learnt that Abdulazeez said he paid the sum in dollars to his mother, Mrs Ganduje, Premium Times reports.

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“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.

Instead of Ganduje’s wife report to the EFCC’s Abuja, she travelled to the UK at the time to attend the graduation ceremony of her son.

A person, who has the knowledge of the arrest but asked not to be identified, said “she was arrested this (Monday) evening.”

Mrs Ganduje was still at EFCC headquarters as of 6 a.m. on Monday, this newspaper learnt.

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.