What LEADERSHIP Left Out Of “El-Rufai And The Question Of Bail”
LEADERSHIP’s editorial of 4 August 2026 opens with the right instinct, that the charges against Mallam Nasir El-Rufai “remain allegations, not proven facts,” and that he is entitled to the presumption of innocence, and then spends the rest of the piece quietly withdrawing that concession. The paper does not argue that Mallam El-Rufai’s cancer is […]
LEADERSHIP's editorial on 4 August 2026 presented a balanced view of Mallam Nasir El-Rufai's bail applications, acknowledging that the charges remained allegations and not proven facts. However, it failed to fully explore the implications of the medical report that was initially used to deny him bail. The editorial did not delve into the fact that the report was disowned by the National Hospital, nor did it mention that the doctor who wrote the report, Dr. Bello Abubakar, confirmed being the author and denied any involvement in a forgery scheme.
Dr. Abubakar stated that El-Rufai had been a patient at the hospital since around 2005, and that he personally attended to him on multiple occasions, with two of those consultations happening inside the ICPC's facility. This information, which was reported and confirmed by ICPC itself, was notably absent from LEADERSHIP's editorial.
The editorial's focus on the gravity of the underlying charge, rather than examining the credibility of the medical report, amounted to a transfer of suspicion. It treated the weight of an accusation as if it settled the entire matter, rather than prompting a thorough investigation. While the editorial acknowledged the controversy surrounding the medical report, it did not provide sufficient context for readers to fully understand the situation.
A deeper look into the facts reveals that Dr. Abubakar's account of the doctor-patient relationship is a significant piece of evidence that challenges the ICPC's version of events. This accounts for a different narrative than the one presented by LEADERSHIP, which only mentioned one version of the story. The broader issue with LEADERSHIP's framing lies in its assumption that the medical report was the central issue in all of El-Rufai's bail applications.
However, the court records indicate that previous courts, when faced with similar evidence, had concluded that conditional liberty was appropriate. Therefore, the inclusion of the doctor's account in the editorial would have provided a more balanced and comprehensive perspective on the case.
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