Gov Ganduje not indicted in EFCC report, says Kano government
… Threatens legal action against publication
AREWA AGENDA – Kano State government has faulted a media report alleging that Governor Abdullahi Ganduje is one of the three governors indicted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to have stored naira bills in their houses.
It vowed to institute legal action against the online media platform for “malicious publication” against the governor unless a retraction is made immediately.
There were reports that some state governors were planning to pay salaries with raw cash, ostensibly to dispose of the cash in their possession, to beat the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) deadline for naira redesigning.
The Commissioner for Information, Muhammad Garba, posited that even when EFCC did not mention the identity of the governors indicted, the medium’s inclusion of Ganduje remained faulty.
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While describing the report as lacking texture for an investigative story, the commissioner said it was either the figment of the publisher’s imagination or a deliberate attempt to tarnish the image of the governor.
Garba pointed out that Ganduje could not have stashed away billions of naira to engage in the dreary process of table payment of workers’ salaries in an era of e-banking services.
The commissioner added that Kano had been one of the few states in the federation that consistently paid workers’ salaries, insisting that payment of October salary had already commenced, even as at the time of the release of the report.
He, therefore, called for the retraction of the story and an unreserved apology from the publishers, a failure of which the state government would not hesitate to take legal action.
Sahara Reporters’ publication of November 4, 2022, had fingered three Nigerian governors stacking naira in various houses in Kano, Abuja and Port Harcourt.
It named Governor Bello Matawalle of Zamfara and Nyesom Wike of Rivers and Ganduje as those behind the stockpile of the Nigerian currency.
The publication came after CBN’s announcement of its decision to redesign the naira bill.
EFCC recently arrested some street foreign exchange operators for aiding mass naira exchange to hard currency, a deliberate attempt to release the naira in their possession.
Credit: Guardian
