Sagay says Ganduje’s bribery videos look more like political conspiracy

Chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN), has some soothing words for the embattled governor of Kano State, Abdulahi Ganduje.

Sagay described videos showing the governor purportedly collecting bribe from contractors as seeming political conspiracy.

The PACAC chairman said he is yet to be convinced that something wrong happened as it looks vague.

“This one seems to me to be very vague and cloudy and I have yet to be satisfied that it is not a political conspiracy of some sort by the enemies of the governor. So, we need to see something more concrete”, Sagay said in an interview with Punch Newspapers.

The professor of law also insisted that investigating the governor over bribery allegation is not part of the responsibilities of the Kano State House of Assembly, declaring that the Assembly is ill equipped to carry out such.

According to Sagay, an investigation of such a video as it is in Ganduje’s case would require forensic analysis which the legislative arm of government was not competent to carry out.

He said: “The fact that somebody on social media which is full of lies and hate attacks against people says so does not prove that such has happened.

“Personally I would like to see the contractor come out and say ‘yes I am the one and I gave him so and so amount’. I would like to see that but that has not yet happened. In any case, when it comes to the investigation of the governor, I think we have institutions that have been established for that. We have the EFCC particularly for that.

“I don’t really understand what role the House of Assembly wanted to place on itself. It is not equipped to do investigations of the sort because it could be forensic. So, in other words, there is still a cloud over the whole thing and I am not ready to jump to any conclusion until I am confident that some wrong has been done.”

On the oversight responsibility of the Assembly, Sagay said the job of the Assembly was to carry out oversight functions and not to investigate state executives.

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He said: “Oversight functions don’t include that sort of thing. Oversight functions only involve monies that have been approved in their budget and then oversight is done on how such monies that were approved which have gone through the budget system are being expended.

“That is where their oversight functions are limited to. This allegation is about somebody from outside giving the governor some money. It is not part of the House of Assembly’s responsibilities.”

On the likelihood that failure to investigate Ganduje may amount to double standard since former Governor Ayodele Fayose was investigated while still in office, Sagay said the cases are different.

“When there are clear cases it is easy to act. In the case of Fayose, Musiliu Obanikoro confessed that he ferried billions of naira to him through a private jet and everything was well recorded. Everything was very clear. The man who brought the money was very clear.

“The money was paid into bank accounts that were established. So, it is not the same thing. This one seems to me to be very vague and cloudy and I have yet to be satisfied that it is not a political conspiracy of some sort by the enemies of the governor. So, we need to see something more concrete”, Sagay contended.

 

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