Dollar Video: Our efforts at investigating alleged $5m bribe against Ganduje- Anti-graft commission

Investigation into a video allegedly showing Kano Governor, Dr Abdullahi Ganduje in 2018 collecting a $5m bribe from a contractor is being frustrated by the petitioner and the people.

The Chairman, Kano State Anti-Corruption and Public Complaints Commission, Barr. Muhuyi Magaji Rimingado stated this while answering questions from participants at the 25th Anticorruption Situation Room organised by HEDA Resource Centre in partnership with the Technical Unit on Governance and Anti-Corruption Reforms (TUGAR), Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism, (PTCIJ), National Orientation Agency. (NOA) and AFRICMIL, in Lagos.

Recalls that an online newspaper, Daily Nigerian published the video showing Governor Abdullahi Ganduje allegedly collecting a bribe amounting to $5m from a contractor that went viral.

The governor had described the video as ‘cloned’ and dragged the newspaper publisher, Jafar Jafar to court.

Ganduje then noted that the video was politically motivated to scuttle his 2019 re-election bid.

Solacebase reports that the case is presently in court.

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However, the Publisher of the videos Jafar Jafar recently had to relocate to the United Kingdom over threat to his life.

Muhuyi Magaji said no one was willing to come forward and work with investigators for the prosecution of the governor.

He explained that there are procedures in investigating corruption allegations so as to get to the root and not jeopardize the case during prosecution.

The anti-graft boss said that when the video first appeared on the internet, it came out with music and had subtitles, invariably indicating that it has been worked on.

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‘’After an anonymous person sent a letter by courier to the commission calling for an investigation, “we addressed the media that we couldn’t do that because there is a procedure, even if the complainant didn’t want to appear in public, ‘’Muhuyi Magaji said.

Muhuyi said some complainants asked the commission to investigate the video, but that when officials of the commission traced their phone numbers and office addresses, all were found to be fake and could not be located.

Similarly, ‘’ We invited some of the contractors mentioned in the video, but they refused to come forward and they disowned the video. With this, we could not investigate and prosecute the person in the video as requested, certainly, no anti-corruption agency can do that,” Magaji noted.

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He aligned his argument with section 84 of the Evidence Act, which explained how computer-generated evidence from video and other digital devices can be tendered in court.

He stressed that to prosecute a person before a court of law, the prosecutor must do so with convincing evidence.

Muhuyi in its submission appealed to the media to play a supporting role in the fight against corruption.

‘’In a situation like this, you need to approach any of the anti-corruption agencies, cooperate with them, so that they can investigate and prepare the case.’’