ADC accuses ICPC of denying El-Rufai access to medicare, arrest of Doctor

• Warns Nigeria sliding into tyranny

By Lateef Ibrahim, Abuja

The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has expressed deep concern over reports that officials of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) on Tuesday forcefully denied Mallam Nasiru El-Rufai access to medical care, arrested his personal physician and physically assaulted his wife.

The ADC expressed the concern in statement on Tuesday by its National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi in Abuja.

The party, which stated that information reaching it showed that El-Rufai was billed for treatment at the National Hospital in Abuja yesterday, noted with sadness that

“but against the hospital’s advice that he would require hospitalisation in view of his failing health, officials of the ICPC insisted on returning him into custody”. According to the statement by Abdullahi , “protests by his personal physician and his wife led to scuffles during which his wife was assaulted and the doctor subsequently arrested”.

The actions of the ICPC and the Tinubu government, according to the APC, have for months now gone beyond the realm of law enforcement, adding, “their actions have become an assault on the Constitution of 200 million Nigerians, on human dignity, and on the most basic principles of justice and human rights”.

The ADC statement reads, “The world should know today that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is holding a political prisoner in Nigeria by the name of Mallam Nasiru El-Rufai.

“No democratic government that claims to respect the rule of law should deny a detainee access to medical care or prevent close family members from seeing him in flagrant disobedience of the courts, which granted him unfettered access to his lawyers, physician and family members.

“Such conduct belongs to authoritarian regimes that use state institutions to break political opponents rather than to uphold justice.

“This is no longer about Mallam El-Rufai alone. It is about whether Nigeria remains a constitutional democracy or has descended into a republic where law enforcement agencies have become instruments of political persecution.

“As we have said since this treatment of Mallam El-Rufai began: Today it is El-Rufai. Tomorrow it could be any Nigerian whose only offence is to disagree with those who wield power.”

“The ICPC owes Nigerians immediate explanations. On whose authority was access to his family denied? Why has access to his doctor been refused despite concerns about his health?

“What legal basis exists for these actions? Why were El-Rufai’s wife and doctor assaulted by the ICPC operatives?

“President Tinubu cannot continue to hide behind anti-corruption agencies while pretending that these actions are independent of his administration.

“Under our Constitution, the buck stops with the President. Every day that Mallam El-Rufai remains in custody under these circumstances is another day that Bola Tinubu keeps criminalising political opposition instead of confronting the grave crises of insecurity, unemployment, inflation, and hunger confronting millions of Nigerians”, it said.

The ADC has, therefore, demanded the following:

• Immediate and unrestricted access for Mallam El-Rufai to his wife, children, legal team, and personal medical practitioners.
• An urgent review of the punitive and disproportionate bail conditions imposed on Mallam El-Rufai, with a view to ensuring that they conform with the Constitution and the fundamental principle that bail is intended to secure attendance at trial, not to inflict punishment before conviction.
• An immediate end to the harsh, degrading and unnecessarily restrictive conditions under which he is being held and supervised, and his release from what has become a regime of political persecution masquerading as lawful process.
• Full compliance with all constitutional guarantees and internationally recognised standards governing the treatment of persons in custody.
• Complete transparency from the ICPC regarding the legal and factual basis for every restriction imposed on him.
• An immediate end to the use of state institutions as instruments of political intimidation, vendetta and selective justice.