A Kano State High Court has quashed corruption charges against former commissioner Murtala Sule Garo and five co-defendants, ruling that the Kano State Public Complaints and Anti-Corruption Commission botched both the investigation and its own legal standing to prosecute. Justice Sanusi Ado Ma'aji, delivering judgment at Court No. 15 on Miller Road in suit K/133c/2024, held that no trial can proceed without a prior probe and that state bodies cannot wield federal anti-corruption powers. "It is impossible to prosecute anybody for any crime without first conducting some form of investigation however slight," the judge said, citing the Administration of Criminal Justice Law 2019. He added, "I hold that the complainant herein cannot investigate any issue that borders on corruption or corrupt practices." The court struck out all counts and discharged Garo, his relatives Mohd and Mustapha Sule Garo, Isah Musa Kera and two linked firms. The decision lands weeks after the All Progressives Congress began pushing Garo as favourite to replace resigned deputy governor Aminu Abdulsalam Gwarzo ahead of the 2027 elections.
Justice Sanusi Ado Ma'aji's blunt finding that the Kano anti-graft body "cannot investigate any issue that borders on corruption" strips the state's much-trumpeted commission down to a paper tiger and hands Murtala Garo a pristine clearance certificate precisely when the APC needs a running mate.
The judgment exposes the messy overlap between federal and state anti-corruption statutes: once a court says only EFCC and ICPC can probe graft, governors who campaigned on "state solutions" must now watch politically convenient cases collapse for want of jurisdiction. Kano's outgoing administration built headlines around the commission; the ruling turns those headlines into liabilities for whichever party holds the Government House next.
For Kano voters, the immediate effect is that a man once labelled a corruption suspect by the state is now legally unblemished and poised to become deputy governor. Contracts, local council allocations and patronage networks once under clouded oversight will shift into the office of a politician freed from courtroom distractions.
The episode fits a wider pattern: across Nigeria, state anti-corruption agencies launch with fanfare, then quietly fade as courts clip their wings or governors lose the zeal. Garo's walk-away is the latest signal that, without constitutional clarity, sub-national graft fights remain more theatrical than judicial.
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