El-Rufai Narrates How Peter Obi Allegedly Arrested, Detained Him in Anambra in 2013

Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State yesterday narrated how the presidential candidate of Labour Party, Peter Obi allegedly arrested him in Anambra state when Obi was governor in 2013.

The Kaduna governor disclosed this at an interactive session of the Arewa Joint Committee in Kaduna.

He said the Labour Party candidate arrested and detained him for 48 hours.

According to El-Rufai, Obi was seeking a second term in office on the platform of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) at the time.

He said, “In 2013, I went to Anambra State as an official of the APC to witness the bye-election for governorship. Your next guest, Peter Obi, as governor, got me arrested and detained for 48 hours in my hotel room.

“Now I’m the Governor of Kaduna State and he’s coming to Kaduna. In addition to the police and the State Secret Service, I have one Mechanised Division of the Nigerian Army here, if I need to arrest and detain anyone. But we are northerners, we are civilised. We don’t do things like that. I wish you all safe journey back to your destinations.”

However, an old video surfaced on the internet yesterday whereby El-Rufai had in an interview after the then arrest said, “he was arrested by three state security service (SSS) officials holding AK-47 threatening me that they have directive from Abuja to restrict me to my room.”

“The idea of restricting movements during elections is not constitutional and there is no law that says anyone has the right to restrict movements during elections. We are going to test that in court. We want the court to tell us under which law INEC or any agency of government can restrict the movement of persons around. Freedom of movement is constitutionally guaranteed,” the Kaduna governor had said then.