The Department of State Services has a Constitutional Duty To Charge Nasir el-Rufa’i to Court.
It appears some Nigerians do not yet know the gravity of the crimes Nasir el-Rufa’i has committed. Let me simplify it for all our citizens.
If you know that a thief has stolen some goods, yet you receive them from him, it does not matter that you are not the person who committed the physical act of stealing. By receiving the stolen goods, you are also a criminal and an accessory after the fact.
In the same vein, irrespective of whether or not you are the physical perpetrator of an illegal warrantless wire tapping, you are equally guilty as the offender who hacked a phone without a court order, if you knew that the information obtained and passed to you was the result of an illegal hack, yet you still accepted the poisoned chalice and utilised it then published same.
The Department of State Services, as an institution set up by law in 1976 as a direct result of the assassination of General Murtala Muhammed, and charged with ensuring the security of the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, their government as well as the Nigerian state, has a duty and an obligation to charge Mallam Nasir el-Rufa’i to court for hacking the phone of the National Security Adviser, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu as an accessory after the fact.
I also urge the DSS to conduct an intensive investigation into whether Mr el-Rufa’i has attempted to hack any other individuals or institutions.
Nigerians may recall that on Wednesday, December 7, 2016, then Governor Nasir el-Rufa’i admitted during an interview that he paid killer herdsmen.
With the challenge of insecurity in some parts of Nigeria, it is certainly not implausible that a disgruntled politician who has vowed to uproot the President Tinubu-led administration, and has the capacity, through his agents, to tap the phone calls of literally anybody, can do so and pass such information on to the same people that he once admitted to paying.
The DSS is urged to probe whether or not Mr el-Rufa’i has been providing the details of these hacked phones and wiretapped conversations to terrorists and coup plotters, given his earlier boast of paying killer herdsmen while he was Governor of Kaduna State.
Nigeria would be the butt of jokes in the international community, and our internal security would be compromised if adequate measures were not put in place to check the activities of self-confessed criminals after the fact, who believe they are above the law.
Also, given his boast to unseat President Bola Tinubu by any means necessary, I further call on the DSS to probe whether or not Nasir el-Rufa’i’s agents have already hacked or perfected plans to hack the Independent National Electoral Commission’s servers and other devices.
I remind the DSS that the Kaduna State House of Assembly accuses Nasir el-Rufa’i of looting ₦432 billion from the Kaduna State Government.
If true, and there is no reason to doubt that it is, a man with that level of resources and the criminal mastermind of Nasir el-Rufa’i can undermine Nigeria’s 2027 elections and national security.
The DSS is reminded that Mallam el-Rufa’i once threatened to send foreign election observers back to their country of origin “in body bags”. A man with such a murderous personality may not be above colluding with bandits and terrorists, foreign and domestic.
I, therefore, join a myriad of well-meaning Nigerians in calling on the DSS to fulfil its constitutional mandate and charge Mallam Nasir el-Rufa’i to court for the safety of our republic and democracy.
