The State Security Services on Thursday arraigned former Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai on five charges of breach of national security at the Federal High Court in Abuja.
The SSS filed the charges against El-Rufai in February following his claim on a live television programme that he intercepted a phone call of National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu. The prosecution accused him of breaching the Cybercrimes Prohibition Act (2024) and the Nigerian Communications Act (2003).
El-Rufai pleaded not guilty to all five charges read to him before Judge Joyce Abdulmalik.
Prosecution lawyer Oluwole Aladedoye informed the court that amended five charges were filed against the defendant on April 13 and prayed the court to substitute it with the earlier indictment of three charges. El-Rufai’s lawyer, Oluwole Iyamu, said he had no objection.
The judge then struck out the earlier indictment. After the amended five counts were read to the former governor, he pleaded not guilty.
In count one, El-Rufai was alleged to have admitted during an interview on Arise TV’s Prime Time Programme in Abuja on February 13 that he and another person unlawfully intercepted the phone communications of the NSA. The offence is said to be contrary to the Cybercrimes Act.
In another count, the ex-governor was alleged to have said during the interview that he knew and related with an individual who unlawfully intercepted the NSA’s phone communications without reporting the individual to security agencies.
Another count alleged that El-Rufai and others still at large, sometime in 2026 in Abuja, used technical equipment which compromised public safety and national security by unlawfully intercepting the NSA’s phone communications.
El-Rufai had during a live TV interview claimed he listened to a wiretapped phone call of Ribadu, in which he said the NSA directed security operatives to detain him.
The former governor, a critic of President Bola Tinubu, is facing investigations by different agencies, including the EFCC and ICPC, in separate cases. He was denied bail in one of those cases earlier this week and further remanded in ICPC custody.
