El-Rufai Has Come to Judgment

This is not the best of times for former Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, who recently sued the state House of Assembly over the allegation by the lawmakers that his administration embezzled N432 billion.

The former governor had gone to the Federal High Court in Kaduna to file a fundamental rights enforcement case against the state House of Assembly, complaining that the committee denied him a fair hearing.

However, El-Rufai’s critics alleged that he also notoriously violated the rights of others as governor. One of his critics who spoke to THISDAY, alleged that the former governor showed flagrant disregard of court orders.

He expressed surprise that the former governor ran to court to seek redress.

For instance, he alleged that in October 2017, an Abuja High Court ordered El-Rufai to pay one Audu Maikori the sum of N40million as damages over his illegal arrest and detention but the governor allegedly refused.

According to him, when he eventually appealed the decision , the Court of Appeal in June 2020, affirmed that the state government was wrong and ordered N10.5million be paid to Maikori, but the former governor again flagrantly refused to pay.

He also alleged that in July 2019, a Kaduna High Court ruled that El-Rufai and his ally, Jimmy Lawal, should ‘maintain status quo’ over a revocation plan of land belonging to Alhaji Umar Karaje at Dankande Industrial Area, but they ignored the court order and seized the said land.

The former governor was also accused of demolishing Durbar Hotel, owned by the family of the late General Sani Abacha in January 2020, and revoked the C-of-O while the case was pending in court.

A Kaduna High Court eventually ruled that the demolition was illegal when the damage had already been done.

In May 2023, barely 72 hours to the expiration of his tenure as governor, El-Rufai was accused of deploying bulldozers to demolish Gbagyi villa, a popular residential neighborhood in Kaduna against subsisting court judgments. Eight persons allegedly lost their lives to the demolition exercise.

He expressed the shock that El-Rufai who disrespected the courts could rush to court to enforce his fundamental rights.