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 PREMIUM TIMES inquiry on his role in the sting operation.
However,
a senior official in the company, who spoke to PREMIUM TIMES 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Tiamin that was revoked by the government, dualisation of Kofar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.
Source:- Premiumtimesng
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