Erstwhile Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, has claimed that the phone conversation of the National Security Adviser (NSA), Nuhu Ribadu was intercepted, and that he heard the NSA directing security operatives to detain him.
He alleged that Ribadu personally gave the order for his arrest and is behind the alleged attempt to arrest him at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, on Thursday.
Speaking on Friday in an interview with Arise Television, the former governor said, “The NSA’s call was tapped. They do that to our calls too, and we heard him saying they should arrest me.”
TopSociety reports that El-Rufai did not provide evidence to substantiate the claim that the NSA’s phone was tapped. Reacting in a Facebook update, the senior special assistant to the president on Media and Publicity, Temitope Ajayi, wrote:
“El-Rufai admitted on a national television that someone tapped the phone of the NSA for him to listen to his conversation. When Charles Aniagolu, the interviewer, interjected that that was an illegal action, El-Rufai agreed to the illegality. By the time he is picked up to produce the person who illegally tapped the NSA’s phone, he would say President Tinubu is a ‘tyrant’ and persecuting him.”
In a related development, El-Rufai who a chieftain of the All Democratic Congress (ADC) declared that members of the opposition must remain resolute in their efforts to unseat the government of President Bola Tinubu through the 2027 presidential election.
Addressing former Vice President Atiku Abubakar when he visited him, El-Rufai said the attempt by security operatives to arrest and detain him at an airport. strengthened his determination to work toward Tinubu’s removal from office.
His words, “Your Excellency, I assure you that what happened today has further reinforced my belief that we must work hard. We must not sleep between now and March 2027 until we remove this tyrant from office.”
El-Rufai described the Nnamdi Azikiwe airport incident as “unfortunate, totally unnecessary, and probably criminal,” alleging that the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) used operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS) to detain him and hand him over to the anti-graft agency without prior invitation.
