By The independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission has denied the allegations that the detention of former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir-El Rufai, were politically motivated.
Speaking during a media briefing at the Commission’s headquarters in Abuja on Monday, the ICPC Deputy Director and Head of Media and Public Communications, John Odey stated that El-Rufai remained in custody because he had yet to fulfill his court-approved bail conditions.
He said that the court already granted him bail but he his yet to meet his bail conditions. He assured the public that the ICPC will release him if he meet his bail conditions
The ICPC insisted that the anti-graft agency was only carrying out its statutory mandate. They also dismissed the claims that the former Kaduna Governor was denied access to medical care or food while in custody. They affirmed that he has been allowed to see doctors and receive visits from family members.
He expressed that the ICPC does not operate on politics and everything they carried out is still within the confine of the law
“The ICPC does not play politics. The law setting up the ICPC is very clear. The reason we have El-Rufai with us is because there were allegations made against him, charges referred against him. He has been arraigned in court. He is undergoing trial, so he is a defendant in those matters. It is strictly a judicial matter. It has nothing to do with politics,” he noted
The Commission debunked the allegation levelled against them as a widespread circulation of a video interview in a which a woman identified as El-Rufai’s wife alleged that ICPC officials denied her entry into the premises at about 7pm on Friday to deliver food to her husband.
The ICPC described the allegations as “false and misleading” as the governor’s family had previously complied with the access rules and had delivered food to him multiple times on the same day the allegations were made.
The Commission said visitor records showed that one of El-Rufai’s wives and a housemaid visited him no fewer than three times between 10:30am and 5:30pm on the day in question.
The Commission also disclosed that El-Rufai had, in the preceding week, been taken by ICPC officials to visit both his dentist and eye doctor on separate occasions
“He has been allowed to go see the doctors of his choice. Before this incident, he went twice last week and the ICPC took him there. He went and came back twice and he has access to our in-house medical facility”
