Former Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai has filed a N10 billion lawsuit against the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), accusing the agency of preventing his wife and son from visiting him while in custody.
El-Rufai filed the suit through his lawyer, Ubong Akpan, and also listed the ICPC chairman and the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) as the second and third defendants.
The originating motion, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1852/2026, was filed on August 13 and was sighted in Abuja by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
In the suit, the former governor is seeking nine reliefs and asking the Federal High Court to declare that his constitutional rights remain protected despite his detention.
El-Rufai alleged that repeated restrictions on access to his wife, Aichatou Asabe, and son, Abba El-Rufai, had prevented them from providing him with food, medication and other personal necessities.
He argued that the alleged denial breached his rights to dignity and private and family life under Sections 34 and 37 of the 1999 Constitution, as well as relevant provisions of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
The former governor also alleged that ICPC officers physically restrained and intimidated his wife and son on July 7 and interfered with their relationship with him.
He is asking the court to declare the continued denial of family access without lawful authority unconstitutional and to order the ICPC to grant him reasonable and unhindered access to his family and legal representatives throughout his detention.
El-Rufai maintained that a previous Federal High Court order had already directed the ICPC to allow detainees access to their lawyers and personal physicians when necessary.
According to an affidavit supporting the suit, filed by El-Rufai’s Principal Secretary, Mohammed Shaba, the former governor’s wife had regularly provided him with food, clothing, medication and other necessities since his detention.
Shaba said the Kaduna Federal High Court had on April 1 directed the ICPC to allow defendants in the related case access to their counsel and personal physicians.
He argued that the order demonstrated that detainees should not be held incommunicado and that the ICPC remained subject to judicial oversight concerning detention conditions.
The affidavit further stated that before July 7, Asabe had regularly visited her husband and delivered meals and other items to him without obstruction, in accordance with the commission’s established visiting procedures.
El-Rufai is currently facing a case marked FHC/KD/73C/2025 before the Federal High Court in Kaduna, where the Federal Republic of Nigeria is the complainant.
Source: Court documents sighted by NAN.
