Asia Ahmad El-Rufai, wife of former Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai has called on the international community to intervene in what she described as the prolonged detention of her husband and denial of due process.
Lawyer Asia had argued that the continued incarceration of the former governor was tantamount to “punishment before trial” and was a threat to Nigeria’s democratic institutions.
In a public statement marking what she termed the 150th day of El-Rufai’s detention, Asia urged foreign governments, multilateral organisations and international human rights groups to closely monitor the legal proceedings involving her husband.
She said it not as a political actor but as a wife and mother looking for fairness for a member of her family.
Asia said the length of the alleged detention had taken a significant emotional and physical toll on El-Rufai and members of his family.
On the 150th day of Mallam Nasir El-Rufai’s detention, I ask readers outside Nigeria to ponder what that number means. One hundred and fifty days is not a term of art.
“It is five months of missed meals, missed prayers, missed proper mourning of his deceased mother, missed family conversations, interrupted medical care and moments we can never get back,” she said.
Asia acknowledged that her husband had been a controversial figure in his more than two decades of public service.
El-Rufai was previously Director-General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises, minister of the Federal Capital Territory and governor of Kaduna state.
“My husband is no stranger to controversy or the public eye. He has been lauded, reviled, loved and hated. That’s democracy.
“But what is happening to him today is neither democracy, nor accountability. “It’s punishment before trial,” she said.
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Asia said the ordeal began when security officials tried to intercept her husband at an airport, confiscated his passport without a warrant and attacked one of his aides.
She said El-Rufai later voluntarily honoured an invitation from the authorities but was detained despite assurances that he would be granted bail.
The unexpected invitation, his willing appearance before the authorities, the bail that was there on paper but not in freedom.
“There was the night he was transferred from one location to another with no warning and without the dignity of his family knowing where he was being taken,” she said.
Asia also claimed that the former governor fell seriously ill in custody, and was bleeding from the nose and mouth.
She said officials refused to provide him with proper medical care or allow his family to deliver medication that had been prescribed for him.
I still remember the helplessness of hearing that he had fallen gravely ill in custody, bleeding from his nose and mouth, while those responsible for his welfare were reluctant to provide the care any person deserves.
“I remember the anxiety of trying to get him his medication and the officials approving it,” she said.
“The detention has caused emotional distress to the family, who are still waiting for the legal process to take its course,” she said.
“These are not abstract breaches, “They are the moments that chip away at a family’s resolve and hope,” she stated.
Asia made clear she was not calling for her husband to be above the law and stressed that former public officials should be investigated if there were credible allegations.
But she said it was important that such investigations were carried out in a transparent manner and in line with constitutional safeguards.
If the state believes it has evidence, then let it be presented openly and fairly before an impartial court.
But justice is not selective. “It cannot be prosecuted in overlapping charges, repeated detentions, impossible bail conditions and public humiliations to convince the nation of guilt before a judge has heard the case,” she said.
The lawyer said authorities appeared to be employing multiple charges and proceedings in different courts to keep her husband in detention.
She also claimed that Nigeria was moving away from legitimate accountability to “lawfare,” which she defined as the use of legal institutions and judicial processes as political weapons.
“The problem is not whether former officials can be investigated. They can and should be.
The worry is whether the law is applied neutrally or used against those who have lost political favour, she said.
Asia attributed her husband’s plight to his falling out with the administration of President Bola Tinubu and his exit from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
She argued that his political disagreements with the government should not be grounds for indefinite detention or persecution because of prosecution.
“His political break with President Bola Tinubu’s ruling All Progressives Congress and his refusal to submit his independent voice should not render him a target for indefinite punishment or detention disguised as prosecution,” she said.
Asia described the legal proceedings as confusing, alleging that the cases involved overlapping accusations, shifting legal arguments and duplicated claims arising from the same events.
“The legal architecture surrounding him is baffling even to trained lawyers: multiple counts in different courts, overlapping accusations, changing statutory theories and duplicative claims based on the same alleged acts.
“If one application for bail is made and the conditions are met, another charge can be filed the next day. “If one judge has to look at freedom, another process can be used to delay it,” she said.
Such procedures, she said, had turned the judicial process into a kind of punishment before conviction.
“This is how judicial procedure turns into premeditated punishment. This is how we have gotten to 150 days of wrongful detention,” she continued.
Asia stated that the mistreatment was not confined to her husband alone, and also involved some of his associates, including Joel Adoga, Jimi Lawal and Professor Abubakar Bello.
She said Adoga, a former public servant and family breadwinner, had been subjected to prolonged detention, including about one month in solitary confinement.
She also said that Lawal’s health had worsened substantially while in custody.
Asia also cited the reported arrest and detention of Bello on July 7, whom she said was El-Rufai’s personal physician, and said he was placed under stiff bail conditions.
“These men are beloved family members and citizens of Nigeria. These men are not files. Their families are not collateral damage to be ignored for a political vendetta,” she said.
Asia appealed to Nigeria’s diplomatic and development partners to take the allegations surrounding the detention of her husband seriously and not to ignore them,
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According to her, countries and organisations that supported Nigeria’s democratic institutions, security agencies, anti-corruption bodies and development programmes had an interest in ensuring that such institutions respected human rights and due process.
“A country cannot get international support while it is using so-called democratic institutions to wipe out opposition political voices,” she said.
She urged diplomatic missions, international organisations and human rights advocates to call for transparent trials, humane detention conditions and immediate access to medical treatment.
Asia also asked them to ensure anti-corruption enforcement was not used as a tool of political retaliation.
Asia made a direct appeal to President Tinubu to allow the courts to fairly and independently deal with the case of her husband.
“To President Tinubu, I say this with respect and sorrow: history is rarely kind to leaders who use power to hurt the innocent to silence the inconvenient.
“A strong government does not fear a strong critic,” said she.
She called for El-Rufai to be granted access to his lawyers, medical personnel and family while facing any credible allegations against him.
“If my husband is credibly accused let him respond to the accusations with access to his legal team, his doctors and his family. “Let the evidence be heard in the court and not through orchestrated leaks of falsehood,” she added.
But Asia concluded that the issue was bigger than her husband’s personal situation and raised larger questions of judicial independence and equality before the law.
“Nigeria’s friends must understand this case is bigger than Nasir El-Rufai. It is about whether a citizen can fall out with power and still enjoy the protection of the law.
“It’s about whether the courts are places of justice or theatres of intimidation,” she said.
She said that she was not asking the international community to decide her husband’s innocence but to support the democratic principles of fairness, due process, humane treatment and equality before the law.