EFCC arrests Ganduje’s wife

The wife of Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano, Hafsat Ganduje, was on Monday evening arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over a bribery and land fraud case reported by her son.

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

Mrs Ganduje had earlier been invited to report to the EFCC’s Abuja headquarters on September 13, but she did not appear.

Reports then claimed that she travelled to the UK at the time to attend the graduation ceremony of her son.

Investigators are questioning Mrs Ganduje over allegations relating to land fraud in a petition by her own son, Abdualzeez Ganduje.

Recall that her son, Abdulazeez had dragged his mum, Hafsat Ganduje, to the EFCC, suggesting a pattern of corruptly using family access to power for private enrichment.

Abdulazeez’s petition revealed 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”.

Abdulazeez said he paid the sum in dollars to his mother, Mrs Ganduje, according to reports.

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 then requested to be refunded.