The Kano State Public Complaints and Anti-corruption Commission has withdrawn the letters of invitation issued to about 30 people in its ongoing investigation into the alleged misappropriation of N3.4 billion by the Kano Emirate Council.
The Chairman of the commission, Mr Muhuyi Magaji, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Kano on Thursday.
He explained that the commission found it necessary to withdraw the invitation following the discovery of the name of the wife of the Emir of Kano on the list of those invited for investigation.
According to him, the commission will now request for the documents on and limit itself to the expenditures that the agency is probing.
“More than 30 people have been pencilled down for invitation because we have information that whenever we requested for information or document they used to deny us and they engage in producing same apparently in anticipation of a court case.
“Therefore, we decided to invite those necessary based on the available facts at hand.
“The recent issue is for medical trip overseas and we decided to invite the beneficiaries because even the accountant was not allowed to come to us. So we don’t have anybody to ask.
“The issue of the emir’s wife and any other person, apart from the District Heads, we don’t know them.
“It didn’t even come over any one of us that the emir’s wife will be among those to benefit from medical assistance,” he said.
Magaji added that the commission recently invited more than 30 people to appear before it but one of the wives of the Emir was found to be a beneficiary of medical assistance, which was one of the expenditures the commission was investigating on.
“Nobody expected the wife of the Emir to be among the beneficiaries of the medical assistance. I want to state that we don’t know that the wife of the Emir was among those invited.
“It did not occur to us that an Emir’s wife will be part of people who benefitted from the assistance.
“The most disturbing thing is that there was no referral letter or name of the country where the hospital is located was mentioned in the papers or document we have,” he said.
The chairman, who expressed concern over the obstruction of the investigation, however questioned why the Emirate Council would continue to release some information to the social media regarding the ongoing probe.
He stressed that the decision to invite the people was due to the refusal of the Emirate Council to cooperate with the commission in the ongoing investigation.
According to him, it is necessary for the commission to hear from them because there was no document suggesting that the money was spent for that purpose.
“No referral letter from any hospital in Nigeria that warrants the need to travel abroad; no any other document to support the claim while some said the visited country read only overseas.
“So the invitation of the emir’s family is not intentional. It is an innocent move as part of our fact finding mission and if the emirate council had cooperated with us it would not had led to this. A staff of the council like accountant can provide us the necessary information,’’ he said.
The chairman therefore urged for the cooperation of the emirate council to conclude the investigation and advised the public to disregard any insinuation aimed at frustrating the probe.
