The State Security Service on Monday
detained a former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Malam Nasir
el-Rufai at its headquarters in Abuja.
The SSS operatives detained el-Rufai, who
is the interim Deputy Publicity Secretary of the opposition All
Progressives Congress, when he reported at their office at about 9.20am
in respect of the invitation he received for making “an inciting
statement.”
Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi, accompanied by Senator Chris Ngige, drove el-Rufai to the SSS office.
Amaechi said he was mandated by the
leadership of the APC to accompany the ex-minister. Other party
chieftains, including the APC national secretary, Mr. Tijani Tumsah, who
also accompanied el-Rufai, were barred from entering the SSS premises.
One of the ex-minister’s wives and his
lawyer were also part of the entourage that went with him to the Maitama
office of the secret police.
Amaechi spent about one hour inside the
SSS premises before he left. Ngige, who spent about four hours, left the
SSS premises around 3pm. An attempt to speak with him by journalists
was aborted by SSS operatives who asked everyone to leave the area.
The SSS had invited el-Rufai to its
office last Friday over a statement in which he said there would be
violence during the 2015 elections.
But the former minister declined to
honour the invitation, saying he had instituted a suit against the
service for detaining him during the governorship election in Anambra
State. He asked the agency to either meet him in his office or produce a
Warrant of Arrest.
El-Rufai, in an interview with
journalists moments before he entered the SSS office on Monday,
explained that he did not honour the invitation earlier as there was no
warrant, adding that the SSS had no power to compel him to come to its
office because of the statement he made.
He said, “The SSS has provided the
Warrant of Arrest and shown it to my lawyer on Friday and I said to my
lawyer that we will come here this morning (Monday).
“It is all about politics, it is all
about 2015, this is just an attempt to intimidate and silence opposition
for crying out that elections are likely to be rigged; I will continue
to speak and they will continue to arrest me until we get free and fair
election in Nigeria.”
He said that he had the right under the country’s constitution to make the statement for which he was invited.
“There is nothing I have said that
history has not shown. I said elections should be free and fair; if they
are not free and fair, there is likelihood of violence. This has
happened in our history in 1964, 1983, 1993 and 2011, so what is strange
about that. Anybody that doesn’t know that is either not reading
history or just ignoring history,’’ the APC chieftain insisted.
El-Rufai, while inside the SSS office
tweeted, “Inside SSS headquarters. They are now saying Governor Amaechi
and Senator Ngige will not be allowed into the building after walking
500 metres….impunity.”
The ex-minister remained with the security operatives as of the time of this report on Monday night.
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