Complaints of human rights abuses, unsuspecting public statements and an alleged avalanche of petitions are the issues that State Security (SSS) is advancing against the ex-governor’s candidacy Nasir El-Rufai from Kaduna state, Newslodge can report authoritatively.
The Senate on Monday confirmed 45 ministerial candidates after a week of selecting 48 of them.
He withheld confirmation of the remaining three candidates.
It was shocking to many Nigerians to find El-Rufai, an ally and one of President Bola Tinubu’s staunchest supporters, among the three.
President Bola Tinubu
El-Rufai is believed to enjoy the confidence of the president after they worked out their political differences ahead of the 2023 presidential election. He demonstrated his warm relationship with the president by indicating during the selection exercise that Mr. Tinubu invited him to work with the.
He was also among the group of former governors on the list of candidates lavished with respect by senators during the selection exercise on August 2. Senators flocked to each other to speak in her favor. Some even discouraged their colleagues from asking questions.
An attempt by Kogi West Senator Sunday Karimi to submit a petition he said was for security concerns against him for deliberation was summarily rejected.
Senate President Godswill Akpabio confirmed that the Senate received a series of petitions against some ministerial candidates, and not just against Mr. El-Rufai, but that such complaints would be forwarded to the president, who nominated them, and to investigators relevant. bodies.
At the end of confirmation procedures on Monday, El-Rufai, who many thought had sailed smoothly, was among three nominees whose confirmations were withheld.
The other two were a former senator from Taraba, Sani Danladi, and a candidate from Delta State, Stella Okotete.
Akpabio said his confirmations would await security clearance, leaving many Nigerians wondering what the security issues might be with El-Rufai’s nomination.
After speaking with different sources with direct knowledge of the security report on Mr. El Rufai, Newslodge is reporting for the first time the security concerns raised by the SSS against him.
The sources, who asked not to be named because they are not allowed to publicly discuss the sensitive issue, said most of the allegations against the former governor were already known to the public.
Newslodge cannot independently the allegations.
The issues include broad and specific allegations, including his widely publicized controversial statements and policies, according to sources with direct knowledge of the SSS complaints.
Broadly, they are categorized as human rights abuses, inadvertent statements and conduct, petitions, breach of public trust, and miscellaneous other matters.
Our sources said that the SSS did not confront Mr. El-Rufai with these accusations.
President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio [PHOTO CREDIT: Godswill Obot Akpabio on Facebook]Alleged unguarded statements
The accusation of “unprepared statements” is an important aspect of the SSS report on El-Rufai, according to sources who shared their knowledge of the matter with this newspaper.
El-Rufai is a vocal politician who has been a recurring feature in the Nigerian political space in and out of government since 1999.
He occasionally sparked controversy in the public offices he held in his decades-long political career.
He owes his political fame in part to controversial comments, some of which continue to haunt him to this day.
The last thing was the comment. made while addressing a group of Muslim clerics in Kaduna after his party, the APC, was declared the winner of the gubernatorial election in March.
In the comment, which caused a stir, El-Rufai said that Muslims could rule Kaduna for a long period while delivering justice to Christians.
The comment was widely criticized as divisive in a state where religious and ethnic tensions could quickly lead to bloody clashes.
Months before El-Rufai’s last comment, a former senator from the state, a political adversary, blamed the state’s troubling security situation on the former governor’s remarks.
Citing El-Rufai’s latest comment, the SSS, according to the sources, said that El-Rufai’s public statements inflamed mistrust between the citizens of the state and, by extension, between Muslims and Christians in the country.
The security agency also noted El-Rufai’s comment in the build-up to the 2019 general election, when he said foreign election observers and operatives from the international community trying to meddle in Nigeria’s elections would return in body bags.
The then-governor, who was a gubernatorial candidate seeking a second term at the time, would later clarify that he was only expressing Nigeria’s willingness to “defend itself against unnecessary intervention” by outside bodies, saying his comment “is the kind of statement you expect to hear from a patriot.”
The SSS said by that comment that El-Rufai was barred from entering the US, a claim Newslodge has yet to independently verify.
Our sources said the SSS also recalled a “blasphemy tweet” it said Mr. El-Rufai posted in 2013. The agency said this caused a stir when it made the comment.
Alleged human rights abuses
Concerns were also raised about alleged human rights abuses by El-Rufai while he was governor.
These include the case concerning the murder of the sons and followers of the Shiite leader, Ibraheem El-Zakzaky, in Zaria, Kaduna state, in 2015.
According to the report of an investigation conducted by Mr. El- Government led by Rufai of Kaduna State.
Although the military was directly responsible, the operation had the support of the state government.
Rather than hold the military responsible for the massacre of Shiites, the government chose to prosecute Mr. El-Zakzaky and his wife for the alleged murder of a soldier who was said to have been killed in a clash between the military and Shiites in December. 2015.
The case dragged on for years without the Kaduna state government being able to produce any tangible evidence. The Kaduna State High Court ended up dismissing the case in July 2021.
The El-Zakzaky case, according to the SSS, was denounced before the International Criminal Court (ICC) and is being investigated by the United Nations human rights body.
Apart from the El-Zakzaky case, the SSS also accused Mr. El-Rufai of having participated in arbitrary arrests of political enemies and confiscation of property and wanton demolition of properties of alleged political enemies.
The agency also accused him of using force and intimidation to suppress protests, leading to extrajudicial killings of innocent citizens of the state.
Alleged financial misconduct
The SSS also alleged that Mr. El-Rufai was facing a series of ongoing lawsuits for selling federal government assets, although no verifiable evidence was provided.
Some other court cases, the SSS also claimed, involved Mr. El-Rufai’s alleged embezzlement of public funds, abuse of trusts, which allegedly involved the use of cronies, allies and relatives for corrupt purposes during his time as head of the Office of Public Companies. (BPE), Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and Governor of Kaduna State.
Newslodge is not aware of the charges pending against Mr. El Rufai. The first instance court dismissed the only widely known case against him similar to the complaints raised by the SSS in 2013.
But the SSS insists that one of those cases is still before a judge of the Federal High Court.
Petitions
Presenting El Rufai as the most controversial ministerial candidate, the SSS said his nomination drew the most petitions and widespread rejections on both mainstream and digital platforms. He added that the aggrieved members of the society also brought protests against him to the National Assembly during the evaluation exercise, the sources said.
They added that before his appointment, several petitions were filed against him. They also said that there were cases pending against him in different Nigerian and international courts, including ECOWAS and the ICC. According to the SSS, the agency also listed some petitions filed against El-Rufai, including one that it said was sent to President Tinubu by the Islamic Human Rights Commission.
He also listed an ICC document acknowledging the court’s receipt of a petition requesting the investigation of Mr. El-Rufai for acts of genocide and crimes against humanity.
The other cases listed by the SSS, the sources said, were a petition to the National Human Rights Commission and Amnesty International, another sent to the ICC over an alleged forced seizure of prime land in Kaduna despite court orders, and another sent to the Kaduna State House of Assembly for the demolition of property in the state.
Senate Plenary [PHOTO CREDIT: @NgrSenate]Miscellaneous issues against El-Rufai
There were various other issues that the SSS raised against Mr. El-Rufai.
These include an allegation that he once insulted northern elders, whom the agency described as “a respected group of statesmen.”
The security report, the sources also said, accused El-Rufai of once describing Tinubu as the most corrupt person and vowing never to replace such a person with a tainted profile.
The agency also accused him of trying to repeal Sharia law in Kaduna state in his last days in office as Kaduna’s governor. This was said to be in his desperate attempt to appease the Christian population in the state. According to the sources, the SSS described the measure as dangerous, with the possibility of triggering clashes in the state.
There are media reports citing the Speaker of the 9th House of the Kaduna State Assembly, Yusuf Zailani, that the members rejected a bill to eliminate Sharia and Customary Courts in the state. But a member of the House of Assembly, Yusuf Salihu, would later deny the claim.
In what appears to be a political profile, the SSS also accused the former governor of betraying his former bosses. Without providing verifiable details, the agency said he stabbed former president Olusegun Obasanjo in the back, vice president Atiku Abubakar (who is said to have brought him into Obasanjo’s administration) and immediate former president Muhammadu Buhari.
ALSO READ: Ministerial candidates: Senate confirms Wike, Keyamo and Adelabu as ministers, refuses to clear three others
The agency also accused El-Rufai of inconsistent character, citing his earlier claim that he was too old to serve as a minister and his subsequent decision to accept Tinubu’s nomination to serve in that capacity.
The agency also cited “unpopular policies” that allegedly destroyed the livelihoods of people in Kaduna state as evidence that he is unfit to serve as a minister. Such alleged anti-popular actions attributed to the former governor included:
Market demolitions without compensation or alternatives. Eviction and demolition of old low-cost housing. Dismissal of thousands of public servants and dismissal of traditional rulers “without due process.” In the letter to the Senate, the SSS did not attach evidence to support these accusations. He said investigations were still ongoing.
When contacted, Muyiwa Adekeye, El-Rufai’s media adviser, declined to comment for this story.
Read More Related News Here
Let hear it in the comment below if you do have an opinion on this; Inside the SSS accusations against Nasir El-Rufai