‘Its All Falsehood’, Dangote Reacts To Kano Ex-Speaker Bribery Allegation

The business mogul in a statement by Tony Chiejina, Spokesman Dangote Group, advised the committee set up by the state Assembly to probe a bribery allegation against its former speaker not to waste their time, saying the allegations are baseless.

“The allegation has been embarrassing to Dangote, Chiejina told the News Agency of Nigeria on Monday night.

“Aliko Dangote does not even know the embattled speaker, Hon. Kabiru Alhassan Rurum, let alone being his friend as alleged by the report”, the Spokesman added.

On 17 June, an online portal DailyNigerian.com, published a report on their platform claiming that Dangote gave the former Kano Assembly Speaker, Alhaji Kabiru Rurum N100 million to kill a probe of Emir Muhammadu Sanusi.The portal, with no address or names of its masterminds, provided no evidence of the bribe. And it came after Governor Abdullahi Ganduje had said the Assembly was prevailed upon by well meaning Nigerians, led by the Acting President Yemi Osinbajo to drop the investigation of the respected Emir over allegations of financial misdeed.

Responding to the allegation, Rurum said in an interview that the claims are false and designed to tarnish the image of the whole Assembly.

He further gave the online platform one week to retract the story and apologise to the State Assembly or face legal actions.

“The story was just a fabrication, a tissue of lies and unjustifiable, because there was never a time I met with Dangote to discuss such issue, not to talk of him offering bribe to us,” he said on June 20.According to him, the intervention of Osinbajo, Northern Governors and other notable Nigerians to stop the probe was channeled through the state governor and not the assembly.

“It is a tradition that when such things happened, the Governor gets in touch with us as one of the three arms of government.

“Therefore, the governor forwarded his request letter appealing for the suspension of the investigation on behalf of all the concerned citizens.”

However, following the suspension of the probe, other lawmakers in the state Assembly seemed to have believed the purported fake news by DailyNigerian.com, and moved to force Rurum to resign on Monday, July 3.

NAN reports that the former speaker had in his resignation letter said he resigned in order to protect his image and that of his constituency over the corruption allegations.

The new Speaker, Alhaji Abdullahi Atta, set up a five-man committee to investigate the allegations against Rurum.

Atta proposed the investigation at the plenary on Monday and it was unanimously accepted by the house.

Atta gave the committee three months to submit its report.