El-Rufai’s dilemma and our institutional frailties

It was inconceivable just two short years ago that former Kaduna State governor Nasiru El-Rufai would spend a week in detention facing serious criminal charges under a government in which he was supposed to be one of the most influential figures. Only last week, El-Rufai went on several TV interviews, and in one of them, […]

It was inconceivable just two short years ago that former Kaduna State governor Nasiru El-Rufai would spend a week in detention facing serious criminal charges under a government in which he was supposed to be one of the most influential figures.

Only last week, El-Rufai went on several TV interviews, and in one of them, he confidently disclosed how the National Security Adviser’s phone was tapped and how he had listened in on a conversation in which the NSA had ordered his arrest at the airport.

El-Rufai’s dilemma brings to mind the tale of the Greek politician Alcibiades: dazzling and ambitious, he charmed people into alliances or into war but was repeatedly sabotaged by his own tongue. El-Rufai’s revelation is serious enough to transcend the boundaries of his political quarrel with the NSA, Nuhu Ribadu, entering the realm of testing the state’s seriousness about national security and the rule of law.

The use of state apparatus to intimidate political rivals must not be condoned within the framework of democracy and the law, and the unlawful detention of individuals or groups for their free speech must not be justified. However, El-Rufai’s admission is potentially an admission of a crime and a threat to the security architecture of the country.

My column last week discussed the deterioration of the camaraderie between the two men, which now feels like cold ash in a long-forgotten hearth. Nuhu Ribadu might be a person with whom El-Rufai has fallen out, but he occupies a very sensitive office. As a private citizen, the former governor has no right to tap anyone’s phone, least of all one occupying a sensitive office such as that of the NSA.

The former governor had persistently claimed that the NSA allegedly uses security agencies to arrest political opponents, manipulating the ICPC and others against him, and conspiring with current Gov. Uba Sani to “destroy” him ahead of the 2031 elections. One of his most explosive claims has included allegations that the NSA is importing poison to clear the field and his wiretapping claim.

If there has been a tolerance by most Nigerians of his fire-starting antics, singeing members of his former party and the party itself, the aggrieved insider who knows too much, who has seen how the broth is made and can no longer keep quiet, this time he has gone too far in trying to illustrate the lengths to which his enemies will supposedly go.

The calls by civil society groups for his claim to be investigated, and if found to be true, for his prosecution, demonstrate the seriousness of the situation. There simply is no basis for tapping the NSA’s calls and pretending it is politics as usual. There are things that cannot be trifled with. While the security and anti-graft agencies have slammed El-Rufai in court on a three-count charge at the Federal High Court, which is the right thing to do, the stalling of the trial and his continuous detention without bail raise questions, as his next court appearance is scheduled for some time in April.

The charge sheet before the Federal High Court in Abuja accuses him of three related offences, all stemming from his televised bravado under the amended Cybercrimes Act that criminalises tapping into another person’s electronic communication without lawful authority. Politics is not a lawful authority in this instance.

At the most recent sitting at the Federal High Court in Abuja, Justice Joyce Abdulmalik declined to entertain El-Rufai’s bail application on the grounds that it was premature since he had not yet been formally arraigned, insisting that a defendant must first take a plea before the court can consider bail. Instead, she adjourned the case to late April for proper arraignment after noting explanations that El-Rufai was still in the custody of the ICPC on a separate investigation and had therefore not been produced in court.

If the law is finally edging into the picture, politics has never left it. From the beginning, El-Rufai has framed his travails as the machinations of his erstwhile friend Ribadu, not as the outcome of his own choices in power or his own words out of it. It is a familiar script in Nigerian politics. Every indictment is persecution; every allegation is a witch-hunt. To accept that he may have crossed lines on surveillance will be a good starting point for public accountability. If this goes unpunished because he is politically connected, what message would that send about who can tap whom?

Ribadu, for his part, has taken a different approach. In February last year, he had categorically stated he was too preoccupied with his office to trade words with El-Rufai, and his decision to speak ill of the former governor out of respect for both their families and past associations seemed measured. He has also denied claims he is posturing for the 2031 presidential run. In tone and posture, he has tried to stand above the fray, allowing aides, commentators, and institutional surrogates to do most of the talking. That silence has been read by some as maturity and by others as arrogance. Crucially, it throws El-Rufai’s media rounds into sharper relief.

If you strip away the theatrics, what remains is not a morality play between saint and sinner but a window into how much damage elite quarrels can inflict on fragile institutions. When an ex-governor suggests that tapping the NSA’s phone and trading in intercepted information is just another move on the chessboard, he is normalising a politics in which surveillance and blackmail are not aberrations but tools of routine competition.

The dominant question throughout this furore has not been about whose side to take, but about what kind of country we are becoming. Nigerian institutions must be protected beyond personal feuds. That is why it is right for El-Rufai to face a judge and be accorded a fair trial, but not right for him to be detained outside the provisions of the law.

While Ribadu is a political appointee, his office is not a political one. Engaging in political fisticuffs at the expense of his crucial national duty would be detrimental to a country facing overwhelming insecurity, economic hardship, and declining trust.

While El-Rufai might be aggrieved over his ministerial snub, blaming Ribadu for that seems like reaching for low-hanging fruit. In the end, that decision to delist him from the ministerial nominees was made by the president. If there is anyone he should hold a grudge against, it would be at the feet of the president who had publicly lobbied him to join his team before leaving him in the lurch.

If El-Rufai’s agitation is for the public good, he must know that when the politics of grievances collides with the fragility of our institutions, it is the country, not the combatants, that pays the price.