Kwankwaso: I Resigned From NDDC Due To Corruption

A former governor of Kano State, Rab’iu Kwankwaso, on Saturday said he resigned from the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) in 2010 due to the rampant corrupt practices in many government agencies.

He said this was as a result of the failure of the leadership of these agencies.

Mr Kwankwaso, a former presidential aspirant, resigned from the board of the NDDC in 2010.

Mr Kwankwaso also said he resigned his appointment because of official corrupt practices in the commission “that he doesn’t want to take part in”.

The former governor told BBC Hausa that the rampant corruption in the NDDC “was due to greed and desperate moves by government officials to accumulate wealth”.

Mr Kwankwaso has equally been accused of graft in the past.

Daily Trust reported how a petition was written against the former governor to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over an alleged diversion of N3.8 billion local government funds in the 2015 general election.

The petition accused Mr Kwankwaso of compelling Kano’s 44 council chairmen to fund his presidential campaign with N70 million each.

Mr Kwankwaso denied the allegations.

In 2020, he and his estranged successor, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje, were also accused of being complicit in a N35 billion defence contract fraud, a charge he also denied.

‘I hate corruption’

On Saturday, Mr Kwankwaso said he hates corruption and would not be a part of it, according to Premium Times report.

“Many times people who sabotage the economy through stealing, nothing is done to them and they end up being with (in) the government.

“All these happenings in the NDDC is because the leaders are not vigilant enough. If the leaders are responsible and vigilant over the huge amount of money being released, even through borrowing, and which is later embezzled, the government would have prevented this,” the former governor added.

However, when asked why he could not expose the corrupt activities while in the NDDC, he said the “corrupt practices there were unprecedented”

A lot of controversies have emerged in the commission in the past one month.

Due to criticisms of the operations of the commission, the president had in 2019 ordered a forensic audit of its operations from 2001 to 2019.

The investigations so far, including another one being done by the Senate, have revealed misappropriation and outright diversion of critical funds meant to better the lot of the people in the largely impoverished region.