News Desks
Kano State House of Assembly has suspended the Chairman of Kano State Public Complainits and Anti-Corruption Commission.
The House will investigate the Chairman and has ordered that he should step down for him not distract the process of investigation.
The announcement of the PACACC Chairman, Muhuyi Magaji, is coming after several weeks of uncertainty around the operations of the state’s anti-graft agency with claims and counter-claims from the embattled chairman, including contention over the commission’s accountant.
Sahelian Times in a recent reported noted, “The last may not have been heard about the travails of the Executive Chairman of Public Complaints and Anti-Corruption Commission (PCACC), Muhuyi Magaji, on whose Commission the investigation searchlight is currently beamed following allegations of huge financial fraud in its operations.
“There are indications that the embattled chairman had earlier planned an elaborate survival strategy in anticipation of a plot for his removal allegedly masterminded by the Kano State First Lady, Professor Hafsa Umar Ganduje.
“The PCACC boss was said to have stepped on the first lady’s toes allegedly in connection with certain activities of the Commission, where the governor’s wife is believed to wield a lot of influence controlling some vital supplies to the agency.”
According to the story, the whole trouble with the Kano State government began when an alleged plan by Magaji to secure a job at the federal level as the Chief Commissioner of Federal Public Complaints Commission reportedly fell through.
The attempt to secure a federal appointment was said to have be predicated on certain signals of impending problems at the state commission due to the alleged friction the state first lady, from which the man had sought an early escape.
He had then hired an apartment in Abuja, the nation’s capital, in anticipation of the said federal appointment, but which did not materialize.
A source close to the Commission, Magaji had also tidied up documents in his office in readiness for a hand-over upon the expected Senate confirmation of the federal job.
“However, by a dramatic twist of fate, Mogaji’s dream job was not to be as Mr Abimbola Ayo-Yusuf from Lagos State was, in May 2021, announced as the new Chief Commissioner for the Public Complaint Commission”, Sahelian Times reported.
Anyhow, the ordeal of the PCACC chairman was said to have begun after Mogaji led a delegation of the state government in the disbursement of over N5bn (five billion) to foreign scholarship students, an arrangement that allegedly against the wish of the Kano State First Lady.
According to the source, Prof Hafsa Ganduje, who allegedly exerted a lot of influence around the State Treasury, has since allegedly made things difficult for the state anti-corruption commission.
SAHELIAN TIMES gathered that since the commencement of investigation into the commission’s books, the commission has been witnessing moths of salary delay while its overhead budget had been suspended.
An insider information source in the office of the Auditor-General said that the accountant at the PCACC had been replaced in in line with opening up of full investigation into the agency’s financial transactions, with questions raised about the qualifications of the former accountant.
Nonetheless, the PCACC had, in a press release on 4th May, announced that it would no longer entertain any matter relating to payment of students on both domestic and foreign scholarship.
A source noted that the announcement was yet another move by the Commission management to avoid any clash with the powerful first lady.
Thanks took a turn for the worst when the chairman reportedly opened a can of worms, which has allegedly exposed skeletons of financial misdeeds with accusing fingers pointed in the direcrion of the first lady’s closet.
In a letter dated June 10, 2021, with reference number PCACC/CM/OFF/VOL.1/071, the chairman requested the State Commissioner for Works to provide information relating to construction of Cancer Centre as well as the supply of diesel by the state government.
Dust was also raised in respect of supply of diesel to the Cancer Centre project in the state.
The said letter hintibg at a full-scale investigation said in part, “In the exercise of its powers under Section 9 and Section 15 of the Kano State Public Complaints and Anti-Corruption Commission Law 2008 (as amended), the Commission is currently conducting an investigation, which requires you to provide the following details:-
(a) All documents relating to Cancer Centre
(b) All documents pertaining to procurement of Diesel.
(c) Any other information that will aid the Commission’s investigation.”
