The fight against corruption in Nigeria is as dangerous as fighting armed Colombian drug cartels, former Chairman of Kano State Public Complaints and Anti-Corruption Commission (PCACC), Muhyi Magaji Rimin Gado, has said.

The Medellín Cartel led by Pablo Escobar and the Cali Cartel dominated cocaine trafficking, leading Colombia to vast illicit wealth for the few whose crimes promoted corruption, violence, mass public revenge, and prolonged bloody gunfights with the authorities. The PCACC was established in April 2005 to fight corruption in Kano State.

Mr. Magaji also warned that the increase in violence and banditry in the North is partly linked to the naked abuse and stealing of public funds by corrupt officials whose self-serving policies create a stagnant pool of poverty and human misery from which criminals find many potential recruits.

He said it was when he started investigating corruption petitions, doing his statutory duties, that he discovered the suspect companies were linked to his former Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, discovering that a lot of Public-Private Partnership Initiatives were actually linked to the former Governor. He said he also discovered billions of illicit funds relating to the state’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), especially concerning fraudulent land rents.

The anti-corruption crusader said his experience while investigating an avalanche of corruption cases in Kano indicated that corrupt politicians are like cancerous ailments that should be removed through a painful but necessary surgical operation before Nigeria can reclaim her pride in the comity of nations.

He said Nigerians should explore democratic opportunities to the brim by casting their votes against a league of corrupt elites that have sold the birthrights of the people.

He said his decision to investigate the looting of billions of public funds in Kano State under former Governor Abdullahi Ganduje spurred ceaseless threats to his life and that of his family, culminating in his arrest last week Friday by tens of armed security guards who drove him from Kano to Abuja in the night where he was locked up. He said for 17 hours he and his family were subjected to harrowing experiences. He said the armed men bundled him into a vehicle where he was sandwiched between armed policemen who drove in the night from Kano to Abuja in order to gag him. He said if armed bandits had attacked the convoy, there was only a slim chance that any of them would escape.

“The cases I started investigating in Kano involved billions of public funds diverted by public officials. They are desperate to kill in order to sit on stolen funds. They are as dangerous as drug cartels in Colombia. Fighting them is like fighting drug lords.”

He said corruption cannot be fought effectively when law enforcement agents are compromised by the same corrupt politicians who have no respect for accountability.

Rimin Gado said some policemen are currently being used against him by powerful but stupendously corrupt politicians who feed on the misery of the toiling masses. He said he was deeply concerned that the Police initiated criminal investigation into a judicial process, duly initiated under Section 211 of the Nigerian Constitution, and that it is prejudicial for the police to hunt and malign someone who has filed corruption charges on behalf of the State against politicians that consistently ruin the frontiers of democracy and human prosperity.

“I was given fiat by the Attorney General to prosecute allegations of offenses against the laws of Kano State. Why arrest me for doing what I have a legal duty to do? Why not arrest the State if they can?

“The police have no legal or moral reasons to enquire about what is already before the Court of Law, especially a criminal matter which the court had already taken cognizance of,” he said.

He spoke as a Keynote Speaker on the topic Youth as Catalyst of Integrity: Building a Corruption-Free Future for Nigeria, at the Public Presentation of the 19th Edition of the Compendium on 100 Profile Corruption Cases in Nigeria held in Lagos on Tuesday. The event was organised by the Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA Resource Centre) in partnership with local and international groups to mark this year’s International Anti-Corruption Day celebration. The theme of the conference was Uniting with Youth Against Corruption: Shaping Tomorrow’s Integrity.

Rimin Gado said from his experience in Kano, corrupt politicians are as vicious as the world’s most violent drug lords who are prepared to kill and burn the country down rather than face justice or give up their crimes. He said prosperity and development in Nigeria would remain stunted as long as corrupt actors dominate the political economy.