We’re in fear – Family protests El-Rufai’s continued detention

The family of Nasir El-Rufai, former governor of Kaduna State, and Senator Lawal Adamu, representing the central part of the state, have protested the continued detention of the leader of the African Democratic Congress. 

In a statement on Monday, they expressed displeasure with the action of the Department of State Services over El-Rufai’s detention. 

Recall that upon arraignment, El-Rufai was granted N100 million bail; however, he was whisked away by the DSS. 

Reacting, El-Rufai’s second wife, Asia, said the family was traumatized by the development and lived daily under the shadow of threats and surveillance.

“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, and police are coming to raid your house. You are being followed. Our phones are tapped,” she said.

El-Rufai’s wife narrated that earlier in the day, El-Rufai had appeared before Justice Joyce AbdulMalik of the Federal High Court, who granted bail and stood the matter down until 1pm.

She said during the break, El-Rufai was briefly taken to the DSS facility—a move he resisted, insisting that two subsisting court orders from a Kaduna court directed that he be remanded with the ICPC.

“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 furniture to be moved,” she recounted.

“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 queried. 

Also speaking, Senator representing Kaduna Central, Lawal Adamu, called for el-Rufai’s immediate release, noting that the former governor had willingly returned from Cairo to submit himself to the authorities.

“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,” the senator said.

For El-Rufai’s son and member of the House of Representatives, Bello el-Rufai, he said the entire affair was politically motivated, questioning the stringency of bail conditions that he said were deliberately designed to be impossible to meet.

“Who keeps a person for 91 days? Why were the terms of the bail so stringent that they are practically impossible for anybody to meet? Why do you have to say that the 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 asked.