Abdulazeez Ganduje, the first son of Kano Governor Abdullahi Ganduje, has reportedly fled to Egypt with his family after reporting his mother’s to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over alleged corruption.
The young man had dragged his mum, Hafsat Ganduje, to the EFCC, sources familiar with the matter said, suggesting a pattern of corruptly using family access to power for enrichment.
Governor Ganduje had yet to comment on the issue.
Daily Nigerian newspaper reports that the governor’s son left the country immediately after filing the petition to avoid the “wrath of his parents.”
A source was quoted as saying, “Abdulazeez left Nigeria for Egypt with his family immediately after filing the petition. He told us he would remain there until the father leaves office. He has avoided his parents and gone underground since the beginning of the crisis.”
His mother had shunned an invitation extended to her by the anti-graft agency, to report for questioning, over a bribery and land fraud case reported by her son.
Ganduje, the governor, had previously been involved in a corruption-related scandal.
He has struggled to untangle himself from the public perception that he is a corrupt public servant since 2018 when Daily Nigerian published a series of videos that showed the governor collecting money from a government contractor.
Abdulazeez reported to the anti-graft agency 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 N35 million as “facilitation commission.”
It was further learnt that Abdulazeez said he paid the sum in dollars to his mother, Ganduje.
“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 he then requested to be refunded,” a source was quoted as saying.
Asked to comment on the matter, a spokesperson for Kano State Government, Mohammed Garba, said, “I am not aware” and, so, he could not comment.
EFCC’s spokesperson, Wilson Uwujaren, did not comment on the matter when contacted.
