Alleged Rights Violation: AGF asks court to dismiss El-Rufai’s N1bn suit

By Ikechukwu Nnochiri ABUJA—The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, has asked the Federal High Court in Abuja to dismiss, as lacking in merit, the N1 billion fundamental rights enforcement suit that the former governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, filed against him and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC). The Inspector-General of Police was also listed as a respondent in the suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/345/2026. El-Rufai, who served as governor from 2015 to 2023 and as Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) under former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration, dragged the respondents to court over an alleged unlawful raid on his Abuja residence.

He specifically challenged the legality of the warrant the ICPC relied on to search his home. He prayed the court to declare that the search warrant dated February 4, which the Chief Magistrate of the Magistrate’s Court of the FCT signed to authorise the search and seizure of items from his residence, was invalid, null, and void. The former governor also sought a declaration that the search warrant was legally defective for lacking particularity, and for “material drafting errors, ambiguity in execution parameters, overbreadth, and absence of probable cause, thereby constituting an unlawful and unreasonable search in violation of Section 37 of the Constitution.” Other reliefs he sought include a declaration that the invasion and search of his residence at House 12, Mambilla Street, Aso Drive, Abuja, on February 19 at about 2 p.m., executed by agents of the ICPC and the Inspector-General of Police under the invalid warrant, “amounts to a gross violation of the applicant’s fundamental rights to dignity of the human person, personal liberty, fair hearing, and privacy under Sections 34, 35, 36, and 37 of the Constitution.” The Chief Magistrate, who was initially listed as the 2nd respondent, was subsequently delisted from the case by the applicant.

At the resumed proceedings on Monday, the AGF, through a lawyer from the Federal Ministry of Justice, Mrs Maimuna Lami-Shiru, notified the court of a counter-affidavit he had filed to challenge the competence of the suit. The AGF, among other things, contended that the former governor failed to disclose any reasonable cause of action to warrant the grant of the reliefs …