The family of the former Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, on Monday raised the alarm after officials of the Department of State Services allegedly took him into custody following a court sitting at the Federal High Court in Abuja. According to the family, the action was a breach of existing court orders directing that he remain in the custody of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission.
Addressing journalists outside the DSS facility, el-Rufai’s second wife, Hasiat, stated that the family was traumatized by the development and lived daily under the shadow of threats and surveillance. She said, "We now live in constant fear. Every day we get a threat: DSS is coming to raid your house, ICPC is coming to raid your house, police are coming to raid your house. You are being followed. Our phones are tapped."
She narrated that earlier in the day, el-Rufai appeared before Justice Joyce AbdulMalik of the Federal High Court, who granted him bail and stood the matter down until 1pm. During the break, she noted that he was briefly taken to the DSS facility, a move he resisted while insisting that two subsisting court orders from a Kaduna court directed that he be remanded with the ICPC. Recounting his words, she said, "He said to them, I am not going to step down because there are two court orders that the Kaduna court gave that I should be remanded in ICPC. Why are you bringing me here? He said, I am not a furniture to be moved."
Hasiat if explained that he was subsequently returned to the ICPC. However, after the afternoon session, during which the prosecution sought an adjournment and the judge fixed a resumption for the following day, he was brought to the DSS instead of being returned to the ICPC custody. She added that el-Rufai refused to step out of the vehicle, quoting him as saying, "He told them that if you want to take me inside DSS custody, you will have to physically force me into doing this, because you had an agreement. When Justice AbdulMalik said I should go to DSS in the first instance, we told her that there are subsisting orders. And she said, let DSS and ICPC go and decide who will keep him and you people decided they are keeping him with ICPC. What has changed?"
She also disclosed that el-Rufai, who has been in custody for 91 days, had been denied access to his personal physicians in violation of a court order by Justice Aikawa of the Kaduna State High Court granting him unfettered access to his lawyers and doctors. She stated that the ICPC in-house doctor had recommended medical tests, after which it was agreed that the doctors would return to discuss the results, but the agreement was disregarded. She stated, "When you see a doctor and you run tests, you are expected to see the doctor back so that he explains what the problem is. He was denied access to the doctor because in their own explanation, they said Malam was not aware that the doctor was coming. I asked Malam; Malam said nobody told him."
El-Rufai’s son and member of the House of Representatives, Bello el-Rufai, stated that the entire affair was politically motivated, questioning the stringency of the bail conditions. He said, "Who keeps a person for 91 days? Why were the terms of the bail so stringent that it is practically impossible for anybody to meet? Why do you have to say that Kaduna State Council of Chiefs will have to give an attestation? Why are we saying that it has to be a government staff of level 17, with a house in Asokoro or Maitama? Which civil servant has N100 million? What are we trying to do; are we trying to make people come out so that they can be targeted too?" He also accused the ICPC of issuing false statements and expressed his intention to deliver a formal petition to his colleagues in the House of Representatives over the matter.
The Director General of the el-Rufai Support Group Association, Dr. Uche Dialla, described the situation as a broader national concern that violated United Nations conventions against psychological torture. Dialla stated, "Torture is not just physical torture. When you take a man psychologically: he is in the custody of ICPC, and then he goes to court, and when there is a break you take him to another environment; that is psychological torture. His bag, his toothbrush is with ICPC. He is not there by choice. He was confined there by the orders of a court. Anything other than taking him back there would be deliberately torturing him."
Senator Lawal Adamu, representing Kaduna Central, who arrived at the scene during the press conference, called for the immediate release of the former governor, noting that he had willingly returned from Cairo to submit himself to the authorities. The senator said, "He was outside this country. He was invited by the ICPC, and he flew all the way from Cairo back to Nigeria to submit himself. We are calling for his immediate release. He deserves to be granted bail on the basis of self-recognition. What is happening is psychological harassment because of politics."
Security sources later confirmed that following a meeting among all the lawyers in the case, el-Rufai was moved back to the ICPC custody as of 5pm on Monday.
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