Nasir el - Rufai as a threat to national security

thecable.ng · Feb 17, 2026 · Collected from GDELT

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Three very serious allegations were made last week by the former minister of the FCT and former governor of Kaduna state, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai. Firstly that he bugged Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, the national security adviser’s phone and is privy to his most sensitive conversations, secondly that the NSA’s office has imported large sums of dangerous chemical weapons into the country for unspecified purposes and thirdly that there is a conspiracy between the NSA and Governor Uba Sani of Kaduna state, his successor in office, to “destroy him” and “jail him for life”. I have tried to stay away from the raging debate that followed these comments due to my longstanding friendship and respect for all three parties and their respective families, but in view of the latest developments and in the light of these grave allegations, I can no longer sit on the sidelines and maintain my silence. Let me begin by saying that Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, Governor Uba Sani and I were closer than brothers during President Olusegun Obasanjo’s Government, and we worked closely as a tag team. Uba Sani took over my old job as special assistant to the president on public affairs when I was appointed as a minister. Nasir was my colleague in the cabinet, and Nuhu headed the EFCC. We all attended federal executive council meetings, and more often than not, we were on the same page on most national issues, and we presented our cases with candour and vigour without any fear or favour at such cabinet meetings, which President Obasanjo graciously allowed us to do. This was as far back as over 20 years ago. We were also all very close to President Obasanjo, whom we revered, and had many private and closed-door meetings with him, together with a handful of other close associates, about how to move his government and the country forward and how to confront and contain his political enemies and detractors. We were loyal to a fault; tough, young, hard-working, fearless and filled with zeal, and we gave our very best to Obasanjo and his government in our respective roles. After we left office, we all suffered severe persecution at the hands of President Yar’adua’s administration simply for being “Obasanjo boys”, and we literally had to fight for our liberty and lives. Nuhu and Nasir were compelled to leave Nigeria for fear for their lives, whilst Uba and I stayed behind and weathered the very difficult storm. Those were the most difficult, trying and testing days of our respective lives, but thankfully, we all pulled through, overcame all the obstacles placed before us and eventually won the day. We came out of it all alive, healthy and well, and for that we give thanks to God. Since those early years, much has transpired, and there have been many realignments, sometimes finding us on opposing sides. Regardless of that, our friendship and strong sense of brotherhood endured and remained intact even if we may have publicly disagreed from time to time. The latest development in the saga of our respective lives is the comments made by Nasir in his interview with Charles Aniagolu of Arise Television on Friday about both Nuhu and Uba, which I believe go beyond the pale and sadly represent a permanent burning of bridges in terms of our brotherhood and collective friendship. One of the things he said in that interview is that he bugged the phone of the NSA, and to this, and much else, I am constrained to offer the following comments as an old friend and a concerned observer. Permit me to begin by saying that it is likely that it is the same people who tapped the late Brigadier-General Uba’s phone and gave the coordinates of his location to the terrorists that led to his execution that bugged the NSA’s phone. It is likely that it is the same people who have enabled the terrorists to kill, abduct, terrorise and abduct our people and brought misery, suffering, tears and carnage to our land that bugged the NSA’s phone. It is likely that it is the same people whose footsoldiers are creating havoc and bringing chaos to Niger, Kaduna, Kwara, Borno, Kogi, Katsina and other parts of our nation that bugged the NSA’s phone. It is likely that it is the same people who wish to destabilise our nation, divide our people along ethnic and religious lines and instigate a violent, unconstitutional and bloody regime change that bugged the NSA’s phone. These non-state actors, agents of destabilisation and terror-enablers, are listening to ALL our conversations, including those on WhatsApp. The truth is that until they are brought to justice for their unconscionable crimes, no one is safe. Sadly, Nasir el-Rufai’s public admission of having a relationship with them and even confessing publicly that he exchanges information with them, even though he acknowledged the fact that such a course of action is illegal, makes him complicit in their crimes and an accessory after the fact. If you can boast of bugging the NSA’s phone on national television, it makes you a security threat to our nation. Again if you served as governor during the killing of 800 Christians in Southern Kaduna IN ONE DAY during the Christmas season in 2016 and do nothing to bring the perpetrators to book; if you can punish the Christians of Southern Kaduna and deny them their allocations and rights for eight years; if you can preside over the slaughter of 1000 Shia Muslims IN ONE DAY in Zaria without consequence; if you can insult our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary, if you can call Southern female Youth Corpers “whores”, if you can lock up critics of your government and preside over the disappearance and murder of traditional rulers like the Agom Adara 111 who you denigrated and humiliated and other critics without consequence for 8 years, if you can seize people’s land, revoke their certificates of occupancy and knock down their homes out of spite and without due process, if you can publicly admit to offering and paying foreign terrorists money and “compensating” them for their losses, if you can accuse Senator Abdul Azeez Yari or Senator Ahmed Sani, both former governors of Zamfara state, of deserving to be listed as terrorists by the American Congress, if you can turn on your former best friend who is now the NSA and your most loyal supporter who is now the governor of your state and seek to malign and destroy them for no just cause, if you can turn around and blame the abduction and possible murder of Dadiyata on the former Governor of Kano state instead of accepting responsibility for his disappearance yourself, if you can claim not to have targetted and viciously persecuted Senator Shehu Sani, Audu Maikori, John Danfulani, Luka Biniyat, Steven Kefas, Nasiru Jagaban and countless others violating court orders and without due process simply for criticising your Government, if you can pick up over 100 Islamic clerics in Zaria whilst they were praying after you sacked them and denied them their entitlements and lock them up in prison, if you can pick up and send hundreds of Christians in Kajuru together with their Pastors to prison simply because they were protesting after their traditional ruler was murdered by terrorists, if you can accuse Nigerian Christians of being the ones behind Boko Haram, if you can say that President Goodluck Jonathan had an assasination squad and was planning to kill you, if you can accuse the NSA of importing what is essentially a lethal chemical and biological weapon and what you described as large quantities of “toxic, odourless and colourless poison from Poland” known as thalium sulphate into our country and imply that he has done so for an evil, sinister, nefarious and possibly homicidal purpose, if you can call the Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio, a “scumbag” on national television, if you can publicly call Senator Makarfi a former Governor of your state “a thief” with no evidence, if you can treat the former Governor of your state Governor Yero with disdain and contempt, if you can call President Buhari, President Obasanjo, President Jonathan, President Yar’dua, President Tinubu, Vice President Atiku Abubakar all manner of names in the past when it suited your purpose in an attempt to discredit and destroy them and their legacy, if you can say “anyone who fights me ends up dead” and that “even President Umaru Yar’adua who fought me is now in the grave”, if you can say “when you engage me in a battle, it is either I am dead or you are dead and if you doubt that go and ask Yar’adua”, if you can demolish Justice Bashir Sambo and Alhaji Inuwa Abdulkadri’s homes together with that of countless others simply to satisfy your insatiable appetite for sadism and your pathological inclination for vindictiveness, if you can demolish markets and shops without court orders, if you can sack civil servants and teachers against court orders, if you can consistently treat our President with contempt and disdain and constantly disrespect and pour venom on the person of our Vice President Kashim Shettima whilst you were STILL in the ranks of the ruling party, if you can publicly threaten to send foreign election observers “back to their country in body bags”, if you can say the Northern elders are “paperweights” and that there are “no Northern elders” except for the likes of yourself, if you can publicly ask Governor Mai Mala Buni of Yobe state why yours truly should have been allowed to join the APC when he was the Interim National Chairman of the party in 2021 simply because I lambasted you for failing to protect Christians from the mass murder, genocide and ethnic cleansing that they were being subjected to under your watch in your state, if you can publicly say that every terrorist and insurgent that is killed by the Nigerian military is “a debt that shall be repaid” and if you can say and do so much more than all these atrocities I have listed then I say that you are not only a security risk and threat to the stability of our nation and welfare of our