Jaafar Jaafar, the publisher of Daily Nigerian, which released the controversial videos of Kano Governor, Umar Ganduje allegedly receiving kickbacks in dollars, has explained his reasons for doing so.
In an interview with Thisday published on Sunday, Jaafar said, “I was driven by two things, really. As a journalist – every journalist will like to have some good reports (exclusives or scoops) that will grab international attention. That’s one. Another point is that the videos can go a long way in providing sanity to our system – especially to the governors collecting kickbacks.
“Because they have seen the embarrassment videos have caused their colleagues, they will think twice and hard before doing anything unseemly. I think the story will serve as a deterrent and make the society better. This should make the governors stop collecting kickbacks or reduce their frequency of collecting kickbacks.”
He noted that the bribery allegation against Ganduje was a litmus test for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) which claimed to be fighting corruption.
Jaafar said, “This is a litmus test. If the APC government, the government that has been preaching the gospel of anti-corruption, preaching the gospel of sincerity, preaching the gospel of equality, fails to do anything about something of this magnitude, then the fight against corruption is just a ruse.”
He urged President Muhammadu Buhari to constitute an investigative panel to probe the veracity of the bribery allegation as reflected in the videos.
“As a responsible administration that is fighting against corruption, he should also at the top institute another independent (investigative) panel to find out the truth in this matter,” he added.
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