by Mohammed Bello Doka
Nigeria is being drawn into a carefully narrowed controversy — a debate about a wiretap — while the far more consequential allegations that triggered this rupture are pushed to the margins. Before any airport confrontation, before any interview storm, before the present fixation on intercepted conversations, Nasir El-Rufai had already accused the federal government of something far more explosive: negotiating with bandits and paying ransoms in the name of security management. That accusation — that the Nigerian state may be accommodating violent non-state actors rather than confronting them — is the original fracture in the Tinubu–El-Rufai conflict. It is also the most dangerous question now being buried beneath noise.
On August 31, 2025, El-Rufai publicly alleged that the Tinubu administration, through the Office of the National Security Adviser, was “empowering bandits” by paying them incentives and ransom to prevent attacks. He described what he called a “kiss-the-bandits policy,” insisting that his position was backed by evidence and that Kaduna State had been drawn into the approach. This was not framed as speculation. It was presented as a direct accusation against federal security policy: that the Nigerian state was financially and operationally accommodating armed groups while publicly denying such engagement. The federal government and Kaduna authorities immediately denied the claim, reiterating a formal no-ransom policy. The allegation therefore crystallised into a stark institutional dispute: a former governor asserting state collusion with violent actors, and the state rejecting it categorically.
Months later, however, the presidency’s own messaging complicated the certainty of that denial. On November 25, 2025, Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy, confirmed publicly that Nigerian security agencies had directly contacted bandits to secure the release of abductees, including schoolgirls kidnapped in Kebbi State. He explained that security services tracked bandit locations and established contact to pressure them into releasing victims unharmed. The government maintained that no ransom was paid, but the admission that security agencies directly engaged armed groups — coupled with subsequent claims by the kidnappers themselves that negotiations occurred — reopened the core question El-Rufai had raised: whether engagement with bandits had become an operational reality despite official doctrine. That confirmation did not prove ransom payments, but it unmistakably acknowledged direct state-bandit contact as a security tactic. The boundary between pressure and negotiation suddenly appeared less absolute than the government’s earlier denial suggested.
It is against this background that the later allegations must be understood. El-Rufai subsequently claimed that Nigeria’s National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, ordered his detention at Abuja airport; that the Department of State Services was deployed against him outside normal anti-corruption channels; that security agencies are being weaponised against critics; that surveillance practices target political figures without transparent legal process; and that investigations into his former aides have been politically driven. These claims together describe not merely personal grievance but a pattern: the coercive arm of the state used in political contest. Yet rather than confront this allegation structure — beginning with the bandit-engagement dispute that preceded it — official discourse rapidly concentrated on a single fragment: whether El-Rufai’s knowledge of an alleged conversation implied unlawful interception.
That shift is not clarification; it is substitution. The country was moved from asking, “Did the state negotiate or engage with armed groups? Did it deploy security agencies politically?” to asking, “Did El-Rufai access information improperly?” The first question concerns government conduct. The second concerns an individual. By elevating the latter and ignoring the former, the centre of gravity of accountability moved away from power and onto a critic. This is the anatomy of political distraction: isolate a controversial element, amplify it through authority, and allow it to eclipse the originating charge.
Even if one assumes, for argument’s sake, that El-Rufai obtained information improperly, the substance of what he alleged does not dissolve. Illegality of acquisition does not nullify possible abuse. Democracies do not decline to examine claims that their security leadership authorised coercive action or that their governments engaged armed groups simply because the accuser is contentious. They investigate the conduct. The present fixation on the wiretap question cannot erase the earlier and more consequential accusation that Nigerian security policy may have crossed into engagement dynamics with violent actors while publicly denying it. That allegation goes to the heart of public safety and national security integrity.
The implications are profound. A government perceived to negotiate with armed groups while denying it erodes deterrence and emboldens violence. Criminal networks read engagement as weakness and opportunity. Citizens conclude that protection is transactional, not guaranteed. Trust in security strategy collapses. Equally corrosive is the perception that the same state may deploy its security apparatus against political figures outside transparent due process. When security institutions are believed to serve elite rivalry, they lose the neutrality that legitimises their authority. They become actors in politics rather than guardians of order. Nations that allow that perception to harden rarely escape its consequences quickly.
This is why the present moment is not a personality clash but an institutional test. Nuhu Ribadu, as National Security Adviser, must address directly and publicly whether any directive concerning El-Rufai’s detention was issued and under what legal authority. More fundamentally, the federal government must clarify its doctrine and practice regarding engagement with bandit groups: whether direct contact, negotiation frameworks, or ransom-related arrangements have occurred, under what oversight, and with what legal basis. Silence or deflection will only deepen suspicion that security policy and security power are being exercised without transparency. Democratic legitimacy cannot survive long under such doubt.
The stakes extend beyond this dispute. Nigeria approaches another electoral cycle amid persistent insecurity, deepening poverty, and widespread economic strain. In such conditions, perceptions of selective coercion or compromised security policy carry extraordinary risk. Opposition actors who believe agencies can be mobilised against them will interpret political competition as structurally unequal. Voters who believe the state bargains with violent groups will question the credibility of security promises. Post-election legitimacy will suffer. Democratic stability depends not only on ballots but on confidence that state force is neither politicised nor compromised.
Abuse — or perceived abuse — of security apparatus for political advantage, and accommodation — or perceived accommodation — of violent actors for expedience, are among the most destabilising forces in fragile democracies. They corrode opposition rights, distort competition, and convince citizens that power is insulated from law. Once normalised, such dynamics are difficult to reverse. Officers learn that loyalty outranks legality. Politicians learn that control of coercive institutions outweighs persuasion of voters. Elections continue, but faith in them fades. That is the slope Nigeria must refuse.
The country therefore faces a clear obligation. The distraction must end. The foundational allegations must be examined. Did the federal government engage in negotiations or operational contact with bandit groups beyond declared doctrine? Did any national-security directive target El-Rufai outside due process? Were security agencies deployed in political context? These questions are not partisan demands; they are democratic necessities. Ribadu must answer them. The presidency must ensure they are addressed through transparent institutional review. Accountability cannot depend on the popularity of the accuser. It depends on the seriousness of the accusation.
Nigeria is being urged to debate how information surfaced instead of what it revealed. That inversion is perilous. Democracies are preserved not by shielding authority from uncomfortable scrutiny but by subjecting it to it. The truth Nigerians must see is not the noise of interception but the substance of allegations: engagement with violent actors, possible politicisation of security power, and the unresolved boundaries of state authority. Until those are confronted, distraction will remain victory over accountability — and democracy will be poorer for it.
Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected]
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