A human rights and anti-corruption activist, Comrade Ibrahim Garba Wala, has cautioned the judiciary over what he described as the “impossible” bail conditions imposed on former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, and called for their immediate review.
Mr Wala, popularly known as IG Wala, also urged the judiciary, particularly judges handling matters involving the former governor, to uphold their role as the last hope of constitutional justice.
In a statement signed on Saturday in Abuja, Wala reacted to recent remarks by the President of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, Mazi Afam Osigwe, SAN, on the alleged weaponisation of bail conditions in the country.
He lamented that courts and law enforcement agencies have increasingly transformed bail from a constitutional mechanism designed to ensure attendance at trial into an instrument of punitive pre-trial incarceration.
According to him, the trend is most evident in what he described as the “ongoing judicial and state-sponsored ordeal” of the former Kaduna governor.
“The stringent, near-impossible conditions attached to El-Rufai’s bail perfectly capture the exact institutional overreach condemned by the NBA leadership,” Wala said.
“Requiring multiple sureties who must be serving federal civil servants on Grade Level 17, demanding original Certificates of Occupancy for landed properties worth hundreds of millions of naira in ultra-expensive districts such as Maitama and Asokoro, and imposing restrictive check-ins at security headquarters create an insurmountable barrier to freedom.
“As the Court of Appeal ruled in Dasuki v. DG, SSS, expecting civil servants to provide multi-million naira properties is not only a logistical absurdity but also a flagrant violation of public service frameworks.”
He argued that the conditions effectively prevent El-Rufai from meeting the requirements for his release, thereby achieving through judicial processes what, in his view, cannot be legally justified.
“The indefinite confinement of a citizen whose physical well-being is allegedly at risk is no longer about accountability; it has evolved into a calculated strategy of physical and psychological attrition,” he said.
While commending the NBA president for what he described as speaking truth to power, Wala recalled that El-Rufai’s tenure as governor was marked by bold and far-reaching reforms that, according to him, created powerful adversaries.
“While these reforms reshaped Kaduna State, they also inevitably created entrenched interests and opponents,” he stated.
He further alleged that political and institutional actors were using the legal process to pursue longstanding grievances against the former governor.
“Highly credible insights from political analysts point to a far more sinister reality: the machinery of state enforcement is currently being driven by a dangerous convergence of historical adversaries and entrenched political interests who are capitalising on this persecution to extract an institutional pound of flesh,” he said.
“On one side, certain elements within the current security and government apparatus are utilising this judicial theatre to settle old scores rooted in past ideological clashes and historical security crackdowns. Concurrently, powerful regional factions are leveraging long-standing grievances over El-Rufai’s reforms, security policies and political reconfigurations that altered traditional power dynamics.
“By capturing or heavily influencing the machinery of federal law enforcement, these forces have transformed what should be a transparent legal process into a coordinated proxy war. It is an unholy alliance using the courts not to seek justice but to execute a long-awaited vendetta.”
The activist called for an immediate review of the bail conditions, urging authorities to adopt “realistic and achievable” terms.
He also called on the leadership of security and anti-corruption agencies, as well as the Federal Government, to ensure that state institutions are not used to pursue personal or political grievances.
“The presumption of innocence must be preserved. The state must stop treating an unconvicted citizen as though he has already been condemned,” Wala said.
“If Malam Nasir El-Rufai is allowed to suffer a silent and systematic breakdown in custody under the guise of ‘impossible bail’, it will mark the formal burial of constitutional liberty in Nigeria. The world is watching.”
