Kano State Governor Abdullahi Ganduje has again said the video in which he was caught in 2018 pocketing wads of American dollars presented to him as bribe is fake.
“No doubt the video is fake,” Ganduje told the BBC Hausa Service on Friday.
“We are making some underground plans, which we will not reveal. But I assure you it is fake, and all those behind it will be put to shame.”
Recall that DAILY NIGERIAN had on October 15, 2018 exclusively published a series of videos showing the governor collecting money from a contractor.
The videos that were serially published in 2018 by Daily Nigerian were said to have been recorded in 2017.
Asked by the interviewer to confirm whether he was the person in the video, Ganduje responded by saying that the video was doctored to show him collecting something.
“Even your picture can be tampered to show something on your head or hand. And you know it’s possible. People always tend to believe falsehood.
“The fact is that we will take action against the matter,” he said.
“Did he ever take dollar bribe”, asked the interviewer.
Ganduje responded:“It is a lie. Nothing of that nature ever happened.
“It was just part of a scheme to stop me from contesting election – and I contested; to stop me from winning election – and I won.
“But that is not the issue, the big issue that we will deal with those behind it,” he said.
The video damaged Ganduje politically and gave him the nickname ‘Gandollar’.
The governor, in the audience participatory programme of the BBC Hausa, also responded to multiple questions from Kano residents on his government’s policies on privatisation of public asset.
Mr Ganduje said claims that his administration was selling off plots of land at historical sites such as the city walls are mischievous.
He said such places are owned by the federal government and that the state government cannot tamper with them.
He said the government only allocated land to residents to build shops in front of the walls. He said the walls are now more protected than before because those encroaching and carving out the walls can no longer do so after shops were erected.
Speaking about his achievements, Ganduje said his government has undertaken projects that will be remembered for more than 100 years
The projects that the governor cited were the bridges he built in Kano, and the Muhammadu Buhari Hospital, which he said was equipped with state-of-the-art medical equipment.
He said the hospitals built by his government would reduce the number of people going abroad for treatment.
