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By Olushola Daniel<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Federal High Court in Abuja on Thursday granted the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) permission to access and analyse electronic devices recovered from the residence of former Kaduna State governor, Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai, as part of an ongoing investigation.
Justice Joyce Abdulmalik gave the approval after an ex-parte motion filed by ICPC counsel, Osuobeni Akponimisingha, seeking authority for the anti-graft agency to inspect and extract data from the seized devices.
Akponimisingha told the court the request was necessary to enable the commission conduct forensic examination and data extraction to aid its investigation of the former governor.
The court was informed that about 14 electronic devices were recovered during a search carried out by ICPC operatives at El-Rufai\u2019s Abuja residence.
Among the items listed were a Sony HD-EGS storage device, a Transcend storage device, Toshiba storage device, Samsung mobile phone, Nokia N958GB phone, Blackberry device, Google IDEOS phone, Samsung storage device (SPO802N), a Remarkable tablet, Apple MacBook Pro, Seagate FreeAgent Desk external drive, ZTE mobile phone, 10 flash drives and a Microcell memory card.
The motion, marked FHC\/ABJ\/CS\/499\/2026 between the Federal Republic of Nigeria and El-Rufai, sought permission for the commission to carry out forensic inspection of the devices, including the extraction of WhatsApp conversations, text messages, call logs, pictures and other digital records relevant to the investigation.
Delivering the ruling, Justice Abdulmalik ordered that the ICPC be granted immediate access to the listed devices for forensic analysis and data extraction for investigative purposes.
Meanwhile, El-Rufai has separately approached the same court challenging the legality of the search of his residence and demanding \u20a61 billion in damages.
In the fundamental rights enforcement suit, the former governor named the ICPC, the Chief Magistrate of the Magistrate Court of the Federal Capital Territory, the Nigeria Police Force and the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation as respondents.
Through his lawyer, Oluwole Iyamu (SAN), El-Rufai argued that the Feb. 19 search of his residence at 12 Mambilla Street, Aso Drive, Abuja violated his constitutional rights to dignity, personal liberty, fair hearing and privacy.
He asked the court to declare the search unlawful, bar the authorities from using any evidence obtained during the operation, and compel the return of all items seized from his home.
However, in its counter-affidavit, the ICPC maintained that it acted on a valid petition and executed the search under a lawful warrant issued on Feb. 18 and carried out the following day.
The commission said the operation was conducted between 1:37pm and 3:56pm with the support of officers of the Nigeria Police Force and in the presence of El-Rufai\u2019s wife, Hadiza El-Rufai, and his son, Mohammed El-Rufai.
The police also defended the operation, insisting it was carried out under a valid court order and in full compliance with legal procedures.
According to the police, El-Rufai\u2019s suit is an attempt to shield himself from investigation and possible prosecution.
They urged the court to dismiss the case in its entirety.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Olushola Daniel The Federal High Court in Abuja on Thursday granted the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) permission to access and analyse electronic devices recovered from the residence of former Kaduna State governor, Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai, as part of an ongoing investigation.Justice Joyce Abdulmalik gave the approval after an ex-parte […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4213,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-judiciary"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/mlcqvjhyzqda.i.optimole.com\/cb:UNMm.7bb\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/f:best\/https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/frontlinenewsng.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/images-96.jpeg?fit=547%2C365&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/frontlinenewsng.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/frontlinenewsng.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/frontlinenewsng.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frontlinenewsng.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frontlinenewsng.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4266"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/frontlinenewsng.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4267,"href":"https:\/\/frontlinenewsng.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4266\/revisions\/4267"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frontlinenewsng.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/frontlinenewsng.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frontlinenewsng.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frontlinenewsng.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}