The Chief Judge (CJ) of Kaduna State, Justice Muhammad Tukur Aliyu, has declined to transfer the criminal case against former governor, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai to another judge for fresh trial.
Justice Aliyu predicated his refusal “on the grounds that there is no basis to take away the case file from Justice Darius Hyet Khobo of the Kaduna State High Court, before whom the former governor is standing trial.”
In an internal letter dated August 19 and sighted by _Thisday_, the CJ subsequently “ordered the trial judge to proceed with the trial and determine it in line with the law and with fairness.”
el-Rufai is standing trial on a “nine-count amended charge dated 10 April 2026, bordering on alleged advance-fee-fraud and corrupt-practices offences.” Although he pleaded not guilty, he “has remain in custody of the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC), since his arrest and the subsequent refusal of his bail applications, by Justice Khobo.”
The refusal of bail prompted petitions to the CJ citing alleged bias. “While the first petition was written on June 30, by el-Rufai’s team of lawyers led by Ubong Akpan, the former governor and a chieftain of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), personally wrote the second dated July 6.”
*CJ’s Decision*
After consideration, Justice Aliyu said he found no reason to invoke his administrative powers.
“I have studied and considered the petitions dated June 30, 2026 and July 6, 2026, respectively submitted by Counsel for the Defendant and the Defendant, as well as Your Lordship’s responses to the said petitions dated July 16, 2026,” the CJ wrote.
“Pursuant to the powers conferred on me under Section 111(1)+(4) of the Kaduna State Administration of Criminal Justice Law, 2017, a body of three (3) reputable legal practitioners was constituted to investigate the petitions and submit its report. The committee submitted its report yesterday, August 18, 2026.”
“The Committee found no basis for the exercise of my administrative powers to transfer the matter from Your Lordship to another Judge of the High Court of Justice, Kaduna State. Accordingly, Your Lordship shall proceed with the hearing and determination of the matter in accordance with the law and fairness,” the letter addressed to Justice Khobo read in part.
*el-Rufai’s Petition*
In his personal letter of July 6 in charge NO. KDOH/KAD/ICPC/01/2026 — _Federal Republic of Nigeria v. Mallam Nasir el-Rufai_, el-Rufai requested the case be transferred to “any other Judge of the High Court of Justice, Kaduna State.”
“I, Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai, write this letter personally and in my own hand, on my own instruction and without the interposition of any intermediary, to bring to Your Lordship’s attention matters of the gravest constitutional and institutional magnitude concerning the conduct of Hon. Justice Darius Hyet Khobo,” he stated.
“I have spent nearly three decades of my lifetime in public service. I care deeply about institutional integrity not only in Kaduna State but our nation at large. I therefore know the difference between a judge who applies the law and a judge who has already decided the case,” el-Rufai stated.
He alleged that the judge “has already convicted him on the face of his ruling,” citing a portion where the judge held that el-Rufai’s “conduct during the failed attempt by the SSS to unlawfully arrest me and seize my passport… discloses not assertion of rights and resisting illegality but ‘a clear pattern of disregard for the rule of law’.”
“My Lord Chief Judge, this is not a bail-stage assessment of flight risk. This is a Character conviction. It brands me a lawbreaker before any evidence has been led, before any witness has testified, before the Prosecution has proved a single element of the nine-count charge beyond reasonable doubt,” he argued.
On alleged threats, he said: “The learned trial Judge recorded, as established fact rather than as an untested allegation, that I made ‘un-retracted death threats against prosecutors and witnesses or anyone who tries to criminalize the Applicant’. I neither threatened anyone with death nor mentioned witnesses or prosecutors in the political statement.”
el-Rufai also told the CJ: “I am presently in ICPC custody. I have been in detention for 140 days today. My health is deteriorating. I am a 66-year-old man with a serious, life-threatening prostate-related ailment, as established by the medical evidence before this Court.”
“The learned trial Judge has, in my presence in Court, refused to accept the citation of decisive authorities that contradicted his predetermined position. This is not a difference of judicial interpretation. It is the misuse of binding authority to reach a predetermined result, and clear expression of bias, at best or deep-seated hatred, at worst.”
He insisted: “I do not seek to evade trial but, is prepared to face the charge before any other judge of this Honourable Court, that would not be subject to such and similar pressures of an alleged vengeful cabal. I seek only what the Constitution guarantees: a fair hearing before an impartial tribunal.”
His prayers included: “To transfer Charge No. KDH/KAD/ICPC/01/2026 from the docket of Hon. Justice Darius Hyet Khobo and re-assign it to any other judge of the High Court of Justice, Kaduna State” and “that my pending applications in the matter — including the disclosure and strike-out motions held over pending the bail ruling — be heard de novo by the judge to whom the matter is re-assigned.”
*Previous Bail Ruling*
Justice Khobo had refused bail on the grounds that el-Rufai “has failed to disclose any special circumstances or changed facts to distinguish this application from the one refused on April 21, 2026.”
The judge had also held that “the gravity of the charges, the unretracted death threats against prosecutors and witnesses or anyone who tries to criminalize the Applicant and the potential for interference with ongoing investigations regards those at large, make the continued detention of the Applicant a necessity for the protection of the judicial process.”
“Accordingly, above lone issue formulated for the determination of this application is resolved against the Defendant and in favour of the Respondent. Thus, the Defendant/Applicant’s second motion for bail pending trial is refused.”