Bribery allegation: Court fixes December 6 for judgment in Ganduje case

A Kano High Court has fixed Thursday, Dec. 6, to rule on whether the state House of Assembly has the power to investigate the bribery allegation against Gov. Abdullahi Ganduje.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the National Coordinator of “Lawyers for Sustainable Democracy in Nigeria’’, an NGO, Mr Mohammed Zubair had filed a suit challenging the court’s constitutional right to investigate the bribery allegation.

When the case came up for hearing on Wednesday, counsel to the Kano state House of Assembly, Mohammed Waziri argued that the Assembly had the power to investigate any person including the governor for the purpose of making laws and checking corruption.

He said even though the governor had immunity but it is not against the investigation to be conducted by the House.

Waziri, therefore, prayed the court to dismiss the application filed by the counsel to the plaintiff due to the fact that it was trying to usurp powers given to the House by the constitution.

However, in his argument, counsel to the plaintiff, Nuraini Jimoh said the House had the power to investigate the governor in view of the fact that it would conduct the investigation in order to expose corruption specifically mentioned by the constitution.

“What the House is investigating is no doubt a crime against the governor. But by doing so, they are exercising their powers to expose corruption,’’ he said.

In his submission, the third defendant, who is also the state Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Ibrahim Muktar maintained that the House had no power to conduct criminal investigation against the governor.

According to him, the state Assembly has no trained experts or investigators to conduct the investigation, and as such assignment should be referred to the police or any relevant agencies.

“The House has no capacity to conduct criminal investigation and it will be to the detriment of the person being investigated because they lack the capacity to conduct the investigation,” he said.

In his ruling after listening to the argument of both parties, the presiding Judge, Justice, A. T. Badamasi fixed Thursday, Dec. 6, for judgement on whether the state Assembly had the power to carry out the investigation or not.