The Kano State Government has
revoked three contracts awarded to Tiamin Multi Services Ltd, a company
belonging to Aminu Mohammed. Mr Mohammed is believed to be the contractor
behind the videos showing the state governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, receiving money
from contractors.
The three projects were worth
N1.6 billion.
The state commissioner of
information, Mohammed Garba, announced the cancellation at a widely reported
press briefing on Friday, on the resolutions of the State Executive Council.
The state government gave
“non-performance” as the reason behind revocation, which affected Tiamin and
one other company, FNL Engineering Limited. It is unclear if the second company
is also linked to Mr Mohammed.
Last year, an online newspaper,
Daily Nigerian, published a series of videos showing Mr Ganduje collecting wads
of dollar bills at different times believed to be kick-backs from contracts
awarded by the state government.
Findings by this newspaper
indicate that Tiamin’s managing director, Mr Mohammed, was the one who filmed
the videos while delivering the cash to the governor at different times.
Mr Mohammed however declined to
answer inquiry on his role in the sting operation.
However, a senior official in the
company, who spoke on Friday evening but declined to be named as
he was not authorised to speak by his boss, confirmed that Mr Mohammed was
indeed the unseen face in the infamous Ganduje videos.
He said the cancellation is not
unconnected with the decision of Mr Mohammed to blow the whistle on Mr
Ganduje’s alleged misconduct.
Ironically, one of the projects
by Tiamin that was revoked by the government, dualisation of Kofar
Dawanau-Dandinshe-Kwanar Madugu was mentioned in one of the bribe-taking videos
among those the contractors needed the governor’s intervention for payment.
Mr Ganduje was heard promising to
talk to the state’s Accountant General on the outstanding payments.
The other two projects by the
same contractor revoked by the government are roads linking different parts of
Bichi and Fagge local government areas.
Mr Garba said the road projects
in Bichi and Fagge were awarded on August 2, 2017 and November 13, 2017 with
completion period of four months and 14 months respectively.
He said the contracts were
revoked based on the contractors’ inability to complete the projects despite
collecting respective advance payments of N204 million and N96 million.
Mr Ganduje is enmeshed in the
bribe-taking scandal in spite of his denial and his suit against the news
platform and its publisher, Jaafar Jaafar.
A probe into the scandal by the
Kano State House of Assembly was also stalled in November by a high court of
Kano State at the instance of Mr Ganduje.
President Muhammadu Buhari has
expressed resentment over the misconduct as captured in the videos.
He was reported to have made
references to it at a meeting with Nigerian community in Paris last year, and
at a meeting of his party’s campaign council penultimate week.
On Thursday, Mr Buhari re-echoed
the dilemma he expressed at the party meeting on the irony of campaigning for
Mr Ganduje with the allegation still around the governor’s head.
Mr Buhari mocked the governor for
going to the extent of receiving the bribes personally and “smiling”. He said
he hoped the issue would be cleared before his scheduled campaign visit to Kano
and suggested the videos could have been doctored.
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