Ganduje Faces Fresh Charges
Former Kano state governor, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje has been brought under fresh charges by the government on Tuesday.
Section 308 of the Penal Code (as amended) CAP 105, Vol. 2, the Laws of Kano State, Nigeria, prohibits criminal conspiracy and misappropriation. The state government accused Ganduje and former Commissioner for Justice, Musa Lawan, of these crimes in the charge sheet associated with case No. K/143c/24.
The offence, the state government said, is contrary punishable under Sections 97 and 315. According to the new charges, there has been financial misconduct involving a significant amount of money.
As stated in the charge sheet, Lawan and Ganduje were charged with planning to convert, divert, and steal ₦240 million for their own use.
The charge sheet states, “The duo are standing trial for dishonestly, fraudulently, and without reasonable justification, in the abuse of your respective offices, conspired between yourselves, misappropriated, diverted, and converted the sum of Two Hundred and Forty Million Naira (N240,000,000.00) to finance purely personal and private cases for your own personal and private benefit, thereby causing wrongful gain to yourselves and wrongful loss to the Government and people of Kano State.”
The prosecution intends to call four witnesses to testify against the defendants, the document further disclosed.
It claimed that Ganduje used his authority as governor to collude with Lawan, who sent out a memo asking for the money to be released for civil cases involving EFCC-alleged abuses of Kano State employees.
The court charges said, “In reality, the funds were purportedly used to secure an order preventing the EFCC from investigating bribery and corruption allegations against Ganduje.”
Ganduje and his associates have faced several legal challenges prior to this most recent legal action. Ganduje, his spouse Hafsat Umar, and additional defendants in absentia pled not guilty recently to an eight-count indictment involving claims of bribery, embezzlement, and distribution of public funds totaling billions of Naira.
The court has yet to set a date for the commencement of the trial, the state government said it intends to present four witnesses for the arraignment.
