Nigeria probes govt critic for hacking security aide's phone

_________________

ABUJA — Nigeria's government referred opposition politician Nasir El-Rufai to the courts on Monday after the frequent critic of President Bola Tinubu admitted to hacking the phone of the head of state's national security adviser.

El-Rufai, a former governor of Kaduna state in the north, had told Nigerian television channel Arise News last Friday that he had intercepted calls from Tinubu's aide Nuhu Ribadu, whom he accused of using the security services as his "personal tools".

"You... did admit during the interview that you and your cohorts unlawfully intercepted the Phone Communications of the National Security Adviser... and thereby committed an offence," said legal papers stamped at a court in the capital Abuja on Monday.

In the same interview, El-Rufai claimed that the Nigerian Department of State Services (DSS), the west African country's domestic intelligence agency, had tried to arrest him at Abuja airport the day before but he had refused to go with them.

El-Rufai, who recently declared that he was still considering whether to challenge Tinubu in the 2027 presidential election, claimed that the anti-corruption commission had "procured the DSS to abduct me for them".

"This is their modus operandi; they are personal tools of Nuhu Ribadu," he said.

"The government thinks they are the only ones who listen to our calls without court orders, but someone tapped his phone, and I was informed."

Another senior member of El-Rufai's opposition African Democratic Congress (ADC) party, former justice minister Abubakar Malami, is likewise facing legal proceedings over allegations of terrorism and money-laundering.