Court permits ICPC to examine devices recovered from El-Rufai’s residence
A federal high court in Abuja has granted the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) permission to access and analyse electronic devices recovered from the residence of Nasir El-Rufai, former governor of Kaduna.
The presiding judge, Joyce Abdulmalik, granted the order on Thursday following an ex parte motion filed by the ICPC.
Moving the application, Osuobeni Akponimisingha, counsel to the ICPC, asked the court to allow the commission to access the devices for inspection and forensic examination.
Akponimisingha told the court that the request was necessary to enable investigators to conduct forensic analysis and data extraction as part of an ongoing investigation involving the former governor.
Items listed by the commission include a Sony HD-EGS storage device, a 1TB Transcend storage device, a Toshiba storage device, a Samsung mobile phone, a Nokia N95 8GB mobile phone, a BlackBerry device and a Google IDEOS phone.
Others are a Samsung storage device (SPO802N), a Remarkable tablet, an Apple MacBook Pro, a Seagate FreeAgent external drive, a ZTE mobile phone, 10 flash drives and a microcell memory card.
The application, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/499/2026, was filed in the name of the Federal Republic of Nigeria against el-Rufai.
El-Rufai had earlier challenged the search of his Abuja residence by the ICPC and is seeking to nullify the search warrant issued by a magistrate court in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), as well as N1 billion in damages for alleged violations of his fundamental rights.
