El-Rufai’s own court fillings, old video interview, and court judgment expose the lie
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
A lawsuit Kaduna Governor Nasir el-Rufai filed nine years ago which challenged his detention at Finotel Hotel, Awka did not mention Peter Obi or Anambra State government, fact checker journalists have uncovered.
The court papers show the State Security Service (SSS) claimed full responsibility for El-Rufai’s detention and the Awka Federal High Court ordered the SSS to pay him N2 million in damages.
An old video of an interview El-Rufai granted TV360 Nigeria – an online TV based in Lagos – has also surfaced in which he said SSS officers told him they were restricting his movement based on “a directive from Abuja” (https://prnigeria.com/2022/10/21/fact-check-did-peter-obi/)
That would mean Obi had no hand in El-Rufai’s detention, despite his allegation on 17 October 2022 that Obi as then Anambra Governor ordered his incarceration.
El-Rufai’s allegation
El-Rufai made the allegation at a forum organised for presidential candidates by the Arewa Joint Committee (AJC) which comprises Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) and Northern Elders Forum (NEF) and other Northern interest groups.
Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), was present on the day along with Bola Tinubu, presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
“In 2013, I went to Anambra State as an official of the APC to witness the by-election for the governorship. Your next guest Peter Obi was Governor. He got me arrested and detained me for 48 hours in my hotel room,” El-Rufai told the gathering.
“Now, I am the Governor of Kaduna State. And he’s coming to Kaduna. In addition to the police, I have one mechanised division of the Nigerian Army here if need to arrest and detain anyone.
“But we are Northerners. We are civilised. We don’t do things like that.”
Obi’s response
Obi denied the allegation, insisting he could not have ordered El-Rufai’s arrest as an All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) Governor under a federal government of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with the APC as the major opposition party.
“Tell me my power, that I was in APGA – government was PDP and APC. Tell me how an APGA person will issue an order for somebody to be detained. Even I was detained in my local government,” Obi argued at the gathering in Kaduna.
“The only offence I committed is that when they asked me, I said ‘that’s how they treat everybody; that I wouldn’t be in Kaduna on the day of election’. That was the only thing.”
Despite Obi’s defence, El-Rufai went on Twitter where he insisted Obi had a hand in his detention without providing any evidence.
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Old video interview
PRNigeria, an online publication, dug up the old video of the interview El-Rufai granted TV360 Nigeria.
In the video which, which PRNigeria said it obtained and verified, El-Rufai said:
“I left my hotel room to go and get my breakfast and I was blocked by three SSS officers with AK-47, threatening me that they have a directive from Abuja to restrict me to my room…
“… Under which law does INEC or any other agency of the government can restrict the right of Nigerians to move around …. Freedom of movement is constitutionally guaranteed. Nobody can stop me from moving around.”
Court judgment
PRNigeria also obtained a copy of the judgment of the Awka Federal High Court on 29 September 2014 which shows El-Rufai did not name Obi or the Anambra government in his lawsuit filed on 19 December 2013, marked FHC/AWK/CS/310/13
El-Rufai deposed in the court papers the SSS restricted his movement on 15 and 16 November 2013 while in Awka to observe the Anambra governorship voter of behalf of the APC.
The only two defendants he listed in the suit were the SSS and the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF).
The SSS and AGF in their joint counter affidavit argued El-Rufai was classified as a “VIP” and was given protective restrictions when he refused the request of the SSS to give him protective company.
The SSS claimed it had an “intelligence report” that El-Rufai would be harmed and it would be blamed for failing to give him protection, hence the deployment of its personnel to the hotel.
Justice Bature Isah Gafai, in the 29-page judgment, did not make any reference to Obi or Anambra government.
Gafai, now on the Court of Appeal, found SSS liable for the unlawful detention of El-Rufai and imposed a fine of N2 million on it as damages for breaching his fundamental rights to personal liberty, freedom of movement, speech, and association.
The judge ordered the SSS also to tender an apology to El-Rufai in two national dailies – The Sun and Daily Trust.
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