I write today not as a politician, lawyer or diplomat, but as a wife, a mother and a Nigerian woman asking that the country my husband served for so many years remember its own conscience.
On the 150th day of Mallam Nasir El-Rufai’s detention, I ask readers outside Nigeria to pause over what that number means. One hundred and fifty days is not a legal phrase. It is five months of missed meals, missed prayers, missed proper mourning of his deceased mother, missed family conversations, interrupted medical care and moments we can never recover.
My husband is no stranger to controversy or public scrutiny. He has spent more than two decades in public life – as head of the Bureau of Public Enterprises, minister of the Federal Capital Territory and governor of Kaduna State. He has been praised, criticised, loved and opposed. That is democracy. But what is happening to him today is not democracy, and it is not accountability. It is punishment before trial.
Arrest without warning and dignity
For 150 days, our home has existed under a cloud that does not lift. There was the attempted airport interception, when security officials seized his passport without a warrant and assaulted his aide in public view. There was the sudden invitation, his voluntary appearance before the authorities, and the promise of bail that existed on paper but not in freedom. There was the night he was moved between locations without warning and without the dignity of allowing his family to know where he was being taken.
I still remember the helplessness of hearing that he had fallen gravely ill in custody, bleeding from his nose and mouth, while those responsible for his welfare were reluctant to provide the care any person deserves. I remember the anxiety of trying to get his medication to him and wondering whether officials would accept it. These are not abstract violations.
They are the moments that chip away at a family’s resolve and hope. Behind every headline about “charges” and “investigations”, there is a family waiting, praying and trying not to imagine the worst.
Justice cannot be selective
Let me be clear: I do not ask that my husband be placed above the law. No public official should be immune from scrutiny. If the state believes it has evidence, let it be presented before an impartial court, openly and fairly. But justice cannot be selective. It cannot be pursued through overlapping charges, repeated detention, impossible bail conditions, and public humiliation designed to persuade the nation of guilt before a judge has heard the case.
Recent public commentary has warned that Nigeria (among other African countries) is drifting from accountability into lawfare – the use of legal processes, judicial procedures and state institutions as political weapons. The concern is not whether former officials may be investigated; they can and should be. The concern is whether the law is being applied neutrally or deployed against those who have fallen out of political favour.
My husband’s case has become a test of that distinction. His political rupture with President Bola Tinubu’s ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and his refusal to surrender his independent voice should not make him a target for indefinite punishment or detention disguised as prosecution.
A strong government does not fear a strong critic
The legal architecture surrounding him is bewildering even to trained observers: multiple charges in different courts, overlapping allegations, shifting statutory theories and duplicated claims arising from the same alleged events. If one application for bail is made and the conditions are met, another accusation can be filed the next day. If one judge must consider freedom, another process can be used to delay it.
This is how judicial procedure becomes premeditated punishment. This is how we have arrived at 150 days of unjust detention.
Diplomatic and development partners: Do not look away
Importantly, this inhumane treatment is not limited to my husband. Joel Adoga, a former public servant and the breadwinner of his family, has endured prolonged detention, including a month in solitary confinement, with his wife and children left to carry the emotional and economic burden.
Jimi Lawal, facing multiple and overlapping legal proceedings, has reportedly suffered serious health deterioration while in custody, including dramatic weight loss and the need for specialised medical treatment. And let’s not forget the 7 July arrest and detention of Professor Abubakar Bello, Mallam’s personal physician, with similar impossible bail conditions.
These men are beloved family members and Nigerian citizens. These men are not case files. Their families are not collateral damage to be ignored in the pursuit of a political vendetta.
This is why I am appealing to Nigeria’s diplomatic and development partners: do not look away. Those who invest in Nigeria’s democracy, security cooperation, anti-corruption institutions, health systems and development programmes have a legitimate interest in whether those institutions respect due process and human dignity. A country cannot receive international support while using ostensibly democratic institutions to annihilate opposition political voices.
I ask foreign missions, multilateral organisations, human rights groups and democracy advocates to monitor this case closely; insist on transparent proceedings before competent and impartial courts; demand humane detention conditions and timely medical access; and make it clear that anti-corruption enforcement must never become a cover for political payback.
In a world of realpolitik, silence may be convenient. But to families living inside that silence, it feels like abandonment.
Places of justice or theatres of intimidation?
To President Tinubu, I say this with respect and sorrow: history is rarely kind to leaders who allow power to wound the innocent in order to silence the inconvenient. A strong government does not fear a strong critic. If my husband is credibly accused, let him face the accusations with access to his legal team, his doctors and his family. Let the evidence speak in court, not through orchestrated leaks of falsehood.
Nigeria’s friends must understand that this case is larger than Nasir El-Rufai. It is about whether a citizen can fall out with power and still be protected by law. It is about whether courts will be places of justice or theatres of intimidation. And for Western governments that rightly speak of democracy and human rights, it is about whether those words will still matter when Nigeria approaches elections in 2027, and the temptation to use state power against political opponents grows stronger.
I do not ask the world to decide my husband’s innocence. I ask only that it stand for the principles Nigeria and its constitution have promised to uphold. Fairness, due process, humane treatment, judicial independence and equal protection before the law are not partisan demands. They are the bare conditions of any democratic society.
My husband’s life and liberty are precious to me, but so too is the soul of our country. If Nigeria can treat an accomplished public servant in this manner, what hope is there for the ordinary citizen without a recognisable name or platform?
That is the question I ask Nigeria’s development partners to hold close as elections draw near: make due process, judicial independence and protection from politically motivated prosecution central to every conversation with Nigerian authorities. Raise this case publicly and privately. Send observers to attend court. Insist on timely, independent medical access. Link democracy assistance to respect for basic democratic norms.
In short, stand with Nigeria by standing for justice and transparency. Stand with our democracy by insisting that power be restrained by law. Stand with our family, not because we seek privilege, but because we seek the simple standard of fairness.
