How Nigeria’s Anti-Graft Agency, EFCC Grilled Governor Ganduje’s Wife For Hours Over Land Fraud

Operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission have grilled the wife of Kano State Governor, Hafsat Ganduje, over alleged multi-million naira land fraud.

The first lady of the state was said to have been interrogated for several hours in Abuja and allowed to go home later in the evening of Monday.

She is expected to return to the commission for further questioning at a later date.

According to Punch, Hafsat was arrested by the commission following her failure to respond to an invitation over the allegations levelled against her by her son, Abdulazeez, who has reportedly fled the country.

The young man 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 enrichment.

The governor’s son reportedly left the country immediately after filing the petition to avoid the “wrath of his parents.”

A source was quoted as saying, “Abdulazeez left Nigeria for Egypt with his family immediately after filing the petition. He told us he would remain there until the father leaves office. He has avoided his parents and gone underground since the beginning of the crisis.”

His mother had shunned an invitation extended to her by the anti-graft agency, to report for questioning, over a bribery and land fraud case reported by her son.

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.

Abdulazeez reported to the anti-graft agency 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 N35million as “facilitation commission.”

It was further learnt that Abdulazeez said he paid the sum in dollars to his mother, 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,” a source was quoted as saying