EFCC arrests Ganduje’s wife over alleged land fraud

Abdullahi Ganduje
Abdullahi Ganduje

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has arrested Hafsat Ganduje, wife of Kano State Governor Abdullahi Ganduje, following a petition filed by her son Abdualzeez Ganduje.

Mrs Ganduje had failed to appear before the EFCC after she was invited on September 13.

Sources quoted by Premium Times said she travelled to the UK at the time to attend the graduation ceremony of her son.

Ganduje’s son told the EFCC in a petition 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 N35 million as “facilitation commission.”

He further said in the petition that he paid the sum in dollars to his mother but the plots of land requested were not granted to the developer.

“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,” said the source quoted by the online newspaper.

Meanwhile, the governor himself was involved in a corruption-related scandal when Daily Nigerian, in 2018, published videos showing him collecting money from a government contractor.