@nasir-ahmad-el-rufai should have known by now that the aim is to keep him locked up till 2027. Th

khalid • 10h ago

The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission has revised its prosecution strategy against former Kaduna State Governor, @nasir-ahmad-el-rufai On Monday, it filed an amended nine-count charge, dropping the earlier money laundering allegations, while introducing a fresh set of corruption, fraud, procurement, and abuse of office offences. Court documents indicate that the amended charge was filed on April 10, 2026, before the Kaduna State High Court, marking a decisive shift from the original 10-count charge earlier brought under the Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022. At Monday’s proceedings, defence counsel, Ukpong Abang, told journalists that the revised filing came as a surprise, insisting the defence was served in court and had not been given time to fully study the new allegations.The charges are entirely new to us. They were given to us this morning while we were already in court,” Abang said. According to him, at the resumed sitting, the court took the plea of the former governor and also entertained his bail application. He added that the defence team would carefully study the amended charges before taking further steps.We will analyse the charges and make our position known. For now, there is nothing we can do until we have fully reviewed them,” he stated. The court subsequently adjourned ruling on @nasir-ahmad-el-rufai bail application to Tuesday, April 14. @nasir-ahmad-el-rufai was earlier arraigned alongside businessman Amadu Sule, but the amended charge now lists the former governor as the sole defendant following the withdrawal of one co-accused. While the original charge relied heavily on alleged money laundering through domiciliary accounts and foreign currency inflows, the amended filing removed those banking-trail counts and replaced them with allegations rooted in governance decisions, procurement breaches, and alleged abuse of executive authority. A comparison of both filings shows not just an amendment, but a restructuring of the prosecution theory from financial possession-based allegations to predicate offences such as fraud, corruption, and breach of trust. In the earlier charge, Counts One to 10 centred on alleged possession and control of funds in a Guaranty Trust Bank domiciliary account, including sums such as $320,800 allegedly deposited by Joel Adoga, $155,800 allegedly from Peter Akagu Jones, $305,300 from Ajayi Ayodele, and several smaller transactions ranging from $4,000 to $10,000. The prosecution had framed these under Section 18 of the Money Laundering Act, alleging the funds were proceeds of corruption and fraud.The amended charge, however, removes all those domiciliary account allegations entirely, instead introducing a new factual and legal framework. In count one of the amended charge, @nasir-ahmad-el-rufai is alleged to have “induced Kaduna State Government to confer a benefit to wit: N11,000,000,000 on Indokaduna MRTS JV Nigeria Limited… for the construction of a light rail project… which project was never executed,” an offence now charged under the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offences Act, 2006.This allegation replaces the earlier money laundering narrative with a procurement-linked fraud theory centred on the alleged non-execution of a multibillion-naira infrastructure project. The second major shift appears in counts two and three, where the ICPC alleged that @nasir-ahmad-el-rufai used his position as governor “to confer corrupt advantage upon yourself when you knowingly approved and received the sum of N289,826,998.12 as severance allowance over and above your legitimately entitled sum of N20,013,245.00.” While the earlier charge framed this as possession of proceeds of unlawful activity under the Money Laundering Act, the amended version explicitly categorises it as abuse of office under Section 19 of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, 2000. Another significant change appears in count four of the amended charge, which states that El-Rufai and others “entrusted with dominion over the sum of $1,085,066.38… dishonestly disposed of the said property in violation of the agreement” in relation to World Bank loan funds. This replaces no equivalent count in the earlier charge, marking it as a new allegation entirely introduced on April 10. Counts five, six, and seven introduce another distinct set of allegations relating to alleged attempts to influence federal investigators in 2025 in Dubai and Cairo. The amended charge states that @nasir-ahmad-el-rufai (now at large) “conspired… to corruptly give a monetary benefit to investigators working for the Federal Government of Nigeria… to compromise an ongoing investigation involving Singularity Network Security Limited.” This allegation also has no counterpart in the earlier money laundering charge and introduces post-tenure conduct into the case narrative. The procurement and contract-related allegations form another key