Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has called on the federal and Kaduna State governments to immediately release former Kaduna State Governor Nasir el-Rufai from detention, describing his continued confinement at a time when Muslims are preparing for Eid Kabir celebrations as cruel, unjustifiable, and a disturbing assault on civil liberties, democratic decency, and the rule of law.
In a statement issued through his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku said the detention raised grave concerns about the deployment of state power to intimidate perceived political adversaries, and warned that selective justice was injustice regardless of the political context in which it occurred.
He said the credibility of any democracy was measured not by how it treated loyalists but by how it treated perceived opponents, and demanded that if El-Rufai was being held on the basis of any legitimate legal process, authorities owed Nigerians full transparency about the grounds and procedure. If not, he said, the continued detention could only reinforce growing fears that Nigerian democracy was sliding toward intolerance and authoritarian excess.
Atiku described Eid as a time for mercy, reconciliation, and humanity, and said there was no justification for keeping a man from his family during a spiritually significant occasion where due process had not been clearly demonstrated, calling on all relevant authorities to rise above political bitterness and act in the interest of justice, peace, and national cohesion.
