After over 12 hours of questioning, Nasir El-Rufai still remains in the custody of the State Security Service. The ex-Minister of the Federal Capital Territory and current Deputy National Secretary of the All Progressives Congress voluntarily entered the SSS headquarters in Abuja at about 9 p.m. on Monday.
Mr. El-Rufai sparked the interest of the Service last Wednesday as he spoke about possible violence at the 2015 general elections. The SSS deemed his commentary "provocative," but El-Rufai denied any wrongdoing on his part. He also ignored the invitation by the SSS to visit their headquarters, citing lack of legal grounds.
On Friday, SSS operatives stormed the two properties allegedly belonging to Mr. El-Rufai. At the second property late on Friday, the operatives insisted they wanted to deliver the warrant to Mr. El-Rufai personally, ignoring his lawyer's demands that the document should be handed over to him.
Today, Mr. El-Rufai has remained at the Service headquarters as of time of filing this report. It remains unclear if he would spend the night there.
El-Rufai was accompanied by his relatives, his lawyer, also by the Rivers State governor Chibuike Amaechi, and a serving senator Chris Ngige.
According to eyewitnesses, Governor Amaechi left at about 12 p.m., Senator Ngige left two hours later, as did one of Mr. El Rufai's viwes.
"Mallam El-Rufai will not be silenced," the former minister said through his media advisor, Muyiwa Adekeye, Friday. "He will continue to do his patriotic duty of challenging INEC and the security agencies to guarantee the climate for free and fair elections in Nigeria by desisting from partisanship and the embrace of impunity."
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