Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has reportedly arrested Hafsat Ganduje, wife of Kano state governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, over alleged bribery and land fraud case reported by her son, Abdulazeez Ganduje.
Premium Times reports that Mrs Ganduje had earlier been invited to report to the EFCC’s Abuja headquarters on September 13 but she did not appear and 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 other sons.
A person, who has the knowledge of the arrest but asked not to be identified, “told the publication she was arrested this (Monday) evening.”
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”.
According to the petition, 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,” Premium Times quotes the source as saying.