A FEDERAL High Court in Abuja has granted bail to former Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai, in the sum of N100 million over allegations bordering on unlawful interception of telephone conversations involving the National Security Adviser (NSA), Nuhu Ribadu.
The presiding judge, Joyce Abdulmalik, granted the bail on Monday, May 16, with several conditions, including the provision of one surety in like sum.
The court ordered that the surety must reside in either Maitama or Asokoro districts of Abuja and deposit the original Certificate of Occupancy of a landed property with the court registry.
Abdulmalik further held that the surety must be a federal civil servant not below Grade Level 17 and provide evidence of salary payments for at least three months, alongside a letter of authentication from the manager of a bank within the court’s jurisdiction.
The court also directed the surety to depose an affidavit of means, enter into a bail bond, submit a recent passport photograph, and provide a verification letter from the surety’s department, as well as a tax clearance certificate covering the last six months.
As part of the conditions, El-Rufai was ordered to deposit all valid international passports with the court registry.
The judge further directed the former governor to report to the headquarters of the State Security Service (SSS) every last Friday of the month at 10 a.m. to sign an attendance register pending the determination of the case.
She warned that failure to comply with any of the conditions would lead to an automatic revocation of the bail.
The court additionally ordered El-Rufai to submit a letter of attestation from the chairman of the Kaduna Traditional Council.
The ICIR earlier reported that the SSS arraigned El-Rufai before the Federal High Court on April 23 over alleged unlawful interception of Ribadu’s phone conversations and other alleged breaches of national security laws.
The charges were amended from three to five counts during resumed proceedings before the judge – Abdulmalik. El-Rufai pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
His legal troubles stemmed from comments he made during an interview on Arise Television in February, where he claimed that he became aware of an alleged directive by Ribadu for his arrest through tapped phone conversations.
“The government thinks that they’re the only ones that listen to calls… Someone tapped his phone,” El-Rufai had said during the interview.
Aside from the SSS case, the former governor is also facing separate corruption-related charges instituted by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) before Kaduna State and Federal High Courts.
The ICPC accused El-Rufai of offences including alleged abuse of office, diversion of public funds, money laundering, unlawful award of contracts, and approving payments for projects allegedly not executed during his tenure as governor between 2015 and 2023.
In one of the cases, prosecutors alleged that he approved the payment of about N11 billion to a company for a Kaduna light rail project that “was never executed”, while another charge accused him of unlawfully receiving severance benefits exceeding approved entitlements.
El-Rufai denied all the allegations in the cases and pleaded not guilty.
On April 14, The ICIR reported that after hearing both sides, the court granted bail to the former governor. The court granted him N100 million bail with sureties, including conditions that he must provide responsible guarantors, among others.
Mustapha Usman is an investigative journalist with the International Centre for Investigative Reporting. You can easily reach him via: musman@icirnigeria.com. He tweets @UsmanMustapha_M