Kano anti-corruption move against Ganduje can Muhuyi Rimingado be fair?

The Kano State Public Complaints and Anti-Corruption Commission (PCACC) has opened a probe on the immediate past Governor of Kano State, Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje.  The decision to probe the former governor was in fulfilment of a promise the commission’s chairman made when he was reinstated by the NNPP-led administration as the head of the […]

The Kano State Public Complaints and Anti-Corruption Commission (PCACC) has opened a probe on the immediate past Governor of Kano State, Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje. 

The decision to probe the former governor was in fulfilment of a promise the commission’s chairman made when he was reinstated by the NNPP-led administration as the head of the PCACC. 

This is good for the political development of the state and we hope the former governor will honour the invitation and appear before the commission to clear the air behind the embarrassing video clip. 

However, the only snag is that the head of the anti-graft body, Muhyi Magaji Rimingado, may not be fair as he was removed as the commission’s chairman on January 25, 2023, by Ganduje, when they parted ways. 

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The Kano State House of Assembly suspended the chairman of the state Public Complaint and Anti-Corruption Commission, Muhyi Magaji in July 2021. Rimingado was suspended for a month over his alleged opposition to the posting of an accountant to the agency from the Office of the Accountant-General of the state. 

He had serious trouble with the Kano State House of Assembly during his probe when he sent a medical report purportedly obtained from the National Hospital, Abuja. The report was in response to his inability to honour an invitation of the House ad hoc committee probing him. 

The National Hospital, however, denied issuing a medical report to him. In a statement signed by its Director, Clinical Service/CMAC, Dr A. A. Umar, the hospital also declared that there was no patient named Muhyi Magaji Rimingado in its record, adding that no folder was opened in that name. 

The hospital, in a letter titled NHA/CMAC/GC/0117/2021/V:I/01, clearly refuted the laboratory test result said to have been conducted at the facility. 

This led to his arrest, by the police, on Thursday, April 28, 2020 in Abuja for forgery, followed eventually by his dismissal. 

Ganduje may use this against the commission and seek for court injunction against it, by invoking the constitutional provisions of “fair hearing.” 

Former governor Kwankwaso, it would be recalled, refused to appear before the Justice A. T. Badamasi commission of inquiry in 2003, leading to the publication of a white paper that haunted him for long before being lucky enough to be saved from its instrument due to the influence of the Obasanjo administration. 

Who knows if Ganduje can as well be shielded from the Kano State politically-motivated probe, by the Tinubu administration. 

The same PCACC under the leadership of Rimingado had in June 2020, opened an investigation of the former Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, on anti-corruption charges over an alleged N2.2 billion land scam. 

Sanusi, responding to Rimingado’s move, had approached the Kano Federal High Court on March 6, 2020, with intention of stopping the PCACC’s invitation to him to appear before it and explain his role in an alleged land transaction scam. 

However, Justice Lewis Allagoa of the Federal High Court, dismissed the fundamental human right suit filed by the former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor against then Governor Abdullahi Ganduje, Kano Public Complaints, the Anti-Corruption Commission and Rimingado, its chairman, as well as the Attorney General and Commissioner of Justice. 

According to the judge, the anti-graft commission and its chairman had the jurisdiction and powers to investigate Sanusi on the matter. 

Therefore, for the public to take Rimingado and PCACC serious, all pending investigations and probes must be seen to be revisited if there was no ill motive or vendetta behind the Ganduje saga.  

Whatever, probing past administrations is good for the polity, as succeeding administrations may be careful by avoiding impunity and handling state affairs with care in fear of what might be their fate at the end of their tenure. 

Hassan Sani Indabawa wrote from Kano