By Alex Igbekhe
Former Kaduna governor Nasir El-Rufai has returned to court with a fresh N10 billion lawsuit against the ICPC, accusing the anti-graft agency of blocking his wife and son from seeing him during his ongoing detention.
The suit, filed at the Federal High Court in Abuja on August 13, also joins the ICPC Chairman and the Attorney-General of the Federation as co-defendants. In his filings, El-Rufai maintains that his constitutional rights remain intact regardless of his custody status, and he is asking the court to affirm that position.
At the heart of his complaint is a July 7 incident in which he claims ICPC officers physically stopped his wife, Aichatou Asabe, and son, Abba, from entering the facility where he is being held. According to the former governor, his wife had been regularly bringing him meals and prescribed medications, a routine that was abruptly interrupted without any court order authorising such restrictions.
El-Rufai is seeking nine reliefs from the court, including a declaration that “the respondents’ continued denial of family access without lawful authority is unconstitutional, illegal, null and void.” He is also asking the court to compel the ICPC to grant him “unhindered and reasonable access to members of his family and counsel throughout the period of his detention as earlier directed by the Federal High Court.”
In a supporting affidavit, his principal secretary, Mohammed Shaba, recounted that Asabe had been the primary provider of her husband’s daily necessities throughout his time in custody. He noted that the ICPC’s actions directly contradict an earlier directive from Justice R.M. Aikawa of the Federal High Court in Kaduna, which permitted detained persons in the ongoing criminal case to have access to their lawyers and doctors.
The affidavit stressed that detention does not strip an individual of basic rights, and that keeping a suspect incommunicado goes against both the Constitution and the Administration of Criminal Justice Act. Shaba further argued that “this order reflects the settled principle of law that detainees are not to be held incommunicado and that the ICPC is subject to judicial oversight regarding the conditions of detention.”
El-Rufai further argued that the alleged denial has caused him significant emotional and psychological distress, describing the experience as humiliating and traumatic. He alleged that the respondents “acted arbitrarily, unlawfully and in a manner inconsistent with Sections 34, 37 and 46 of the Constitution and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.” He also contended that “the respondents’ conduct amounts to an unjustifiable interference with the applicant’s dignity and family life and is therefore unconstitutional.”
This latest legal action adds to a growing list of suits the former governor has filed against the commission. Earlier this year, he instituted a N1 billion fundamental rights case over what he described as an unlawful search of his Abuja residence, which he claimed was carried out on the basis of a defective warrant.
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