The current attempt by sympathisers of Nasir El-Rufai to cast him as a victim of executive overreach would be laughable were it not so politically cynical.
A Daily Trust article published May 16 2026 by Adamu Lawal Toro arguing that anti-corruption agencies must respect El-Rufai’s constitutional rights makes a valid abstract point: every detainee deserves due process. But the article collapses under the weight of a troubling historical context: during his eight years in power in Kaduna State, El-Rufai built his political reputation precisely by trampling due process, disregarding court orders, and imposing policies that devastated workers, traders, and the urban poor.
To portray him today as a martyr of institutional arbitrariness is to ask Nigerians to forget a recent history written in court injunctions ignored, homes bulldozed, and tens of thousands of livelihoods destroyed.
The most notorious example remains the mass dismissal of public workers under his administration. In 2017, El-Rufai’s government announced the sack of over 22,000 primary school teachers after subjecting them to a controversial competency test. The questions were reportedly set at primary-four level, and many who failed challenged the process as procedurally defective and punitive. Before the dismissals were carried out, the National Industrial Court in Kaduna issued an order restraining the government from proceeding pending determination of the suit. Yet the government pressed ahead.
