Court grants Ganduje’s application stopping Kano govt probes

A Federal High Court in Kano has granted an ex-parte order halting the proceedings of the two commissions of enquiry set up by the Kano state government to probe the administration of the state’s immediate past governor, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje.

Recall that Kano state governor Abba Kabir Yusuf last month inaugurated two judicial commissions of inquiry into cases of misappropriation of public property, political violence, and missing persons between 2015 and 2023, when Ganduje, now the national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), governed the state. The commissions, headed by Justices Zuwaira Yusuf and Faruk Lawan, have since commenced sittings.

But in an ex-parte motion filed by Ganduje, the two justices, as well as the Kano state attorney general, Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, and the National Judicial Council (NJC), were listed as respondents.

Granting the order, Justice S.A. Amobeda restrained the two justices “from performing the executive functions assigned to them by the Governor of Kano State in court rooms meant to adjudicate disputes between persons and authorities in Kano, pending the hearing and determination of the instant suit.”

The judge also granted an order “directing the two commissions of inquiry instituted by the Governor of Kano State from conducting any further proceedings until after the determination of the instant suit.”

It was also ordered that the case be given an accelerated hearing, and the case was subsequently adjourned to May 28 for hearing.