Bolaji Abdullahi, during an interview, alleged that the continued detention of Mallam Nasir El-Rufai was politically motivated rather than based on law or justice.

 

“We don’t know why. We don’t know what went wrong. But what is clear is that this is not about law. It’s not about crime and punishment. It’s politics.

 

Mallam Nasir El-Rufai is not being held today because he committed any crime, because that would have been left for the court to decide. Let the court pronounce that he’s guilty or he’s not guilty. But to continue to hold him interminably speaks to something else.

 

And that is why it is clear to us that the desire or the intention of this APC government is to continue to hold Mallam Nasir El-Rufai to ensure that he does not participate in this election and that it does not strengthen the opposition. That is exactly what they plan to do.

 

I mean, but don’t forget, like the family said, Mallam El-Rufai fought for President Bola Tinubu when everyone didn’t want him, when everyone in the Buhari cabinet didn’t want him, when President Buhari himself didn’t want him. It was Mallam Nasir El-Rufai that mobilized people when some people in the North were saying they must contest in the election of 2015 towards 2023, it was Mallam Nasir El-Rufai that mobilized the entire North behind President Bola Tinubu, along with other people.

 

And I’ve seen videos where President Bola Tinubu himself was appealing to Mallam El-Rufai not to leave the country because the government would need him. Then what happened?

 

You see, some of these things beggar belief and make you begin to wonder whether it’s true what people say, that there are marabouts who are determining these things, who say, ‘Oh, maybe this person’s star would outshine your own if you allow him to come here.’

 

We hear these things, right? So, but you begin to wonder because if it doesn’t make sense, you resort to the metaphysical, and you begin to ask yourself, maybe there are some things that you don’t just understand because it doesn’t add up. It doesn’t make sense, you know.

 

So, what we are saying is that today, Mallam El-Rufai has been held, and his health is failing from all accounts that we’ve had. I will repeat it here: if, God forbid, anything happens to Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, President Bola Tinubu should realize, even if he didn’t intend it, that he’ll be held personally responsible, and the consequences cannot even be imagined.

 

So, it’s either he releases Mallam El-Rufai on bail and allows him to face justice, or he continues to hold him until the end of his tenure. Maybe he will come into government, we will investigate what happened, and due blame will be apportioned.”