‘The world is watching’ — IG Wala cautions judiciary over El-Rufai’s ‘impossible’ bail conditions

A human rights and anti-corruption activist, Ibrahim Garba Wala, has cautioned the judiciary over what he described as ‘impossible bail conditions given to former Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai, demanding an immediate review.

The activist, popularly known as IG Wala, also called on the judiciary, particularly the presiding judges handling the former governor’s matters, to live up to their billing as the last hope of constitutional justice.

In a statement released on Saturday in Abuja in reaction to recent public statements by the President of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, Mazi Afam Osigwe, SAN, regarding the weaponization of bail conditions in the county, Wala lamented that courts and law enforcement agencies have increasingly transformed bail from a constitutional mechanism to secure trial attendance into an instrument of punitive, pre-trial incarceration.

He said, “The stringent, near-impossible conditions attached to El-Rufai’s bail perfectly capture the exact institutional overreach condemned by the NBA leadership.

“Requiring multiple sureties who must be serving federal civil servants on grade level 17; demanding original Certificates of Occupancy (C of O) for landed properties worth hundreds of millions of naira in ultra-expensive enclaves like Maitama or Asokoro; and forcing restrictive check-ins at security headquarters create an insurmountable barrier to freedom.

“As the Court of Appeal clearly ruled in Dasuki v. DG, SSS, expecting civil servants to provide multi-million naira properties is not only a logistical absurdity but also a flagrant violation of public service frameworks.”

He added that by keeping El-Rufai structurally locked out of perfecting his bail, his detractors were achieving through judicial frustration what they cannot legally justify.

“The indefinite confinement of a citizen whose physical well-being is actively at risk. This is no longer about accountability; it has evolved into a calculated strategy of physical and psychological attrition,” the activist said.

The statement called for an immediate “review of El-Rufai’s bail conditions to realistic, achievable parameters that do not require turning civil servants into real estate moguls”.