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A Caged Lion is Still a Lion: Avenge El-Rufai’s Treatment With Your Votes — Refuse to Be Intimidated Today marks two hundred and forty-six days since Mallam Nasir El-Rufai voluntarily surrendered himself to an investigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, and subsequently the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, on February 18, 2026, a detention that has now stretched through nearly eight months of a man who committed no crime other than refusing to kneel. A lot of people, supporters and even enemies alike, have registered their frustration at a spectacle that has long ceased to resemble justice and has become something closer to a political hostage situation. The campaign is about to start, and the paper tigers know it, which is precisely why the cage has not been opened. They thought the cage would silence him. They thought the chains would make the people forget. They were wrong. A caged lion is still a lion but more dangerous. The roar does not die because the mouth is behind bars. It echoes louder. It travels farther. It wakes up those who were sleeping. And in Kaduna, across the North, and through every corner of this country where people still believe that leadership is about service and not about swallowing the commonwealth, the people are waking up. They are watching. They are remembering. And they are angry. Let us be clear. The detention of Nasir El-Rufai is no longer a legal matter. It has become a political circus, and the clowns are not even pretending anymore. A former senator allegedly stood in Zaria and begged the governor to keep El-Rufai locked up until after the 2027 election, until the governor receives his crown, and only then should the lion be released. Read that again. A public figure, in broad daylight, at a political gathering, openly linking the continued detention of a former governor to the electoral ambitions of the incumbent. This is not justice. This is not the rule of law. This is fear wearing the mask of legality. And the mask is slipping. Who are these people demanding that El-Rufai remain caged? Their records speak louder than any label. They are the ones who have never won anything on their own. They are the political tourists who attach themselves to whoever holds the microphone and the purse then betray them and find another host to leech again. They could not win a ward councillorship without standing on another man’s structure. They have no history of political triumph in and of themselves. And now, terrified that the lion might walk out of the cage and remind the people of what real leadership looks like, they are begging for the detention to continue. Paper tigers. That is what they are. Paper tigers roaring at a lion behind bars because they know that if the bars were removed, they would scatter like leaves in a storm. Their fear is understandable. El-Rufai’s greatest strength was never in the Government House. It was never in the ministerial chambers. It was never in the boardroom of the APC or the corridors of power. His greatest strength is the people. Not just in Kaduna, though Kaduna knows him best. Across Nigeria, there are people who remember a man who spoke truth to power when it was dangerous. Who stood against the naira redesign policy not because it hurt his party’s chances, but because he saw ordinary Nigerians suffering at the ATM queues, unable to buy food, unable to transport themselves to work. He said it plainly, without fear of the cabal in Aso Rock: the president made a mistake. How many of those now calling him a criminal had the courage to say that? Not one. They were too busy calculating how to position themselves for the next round of appointments.

Tinubu, Akintola, El-Rufai: Why the North Cannot Trust Southwest in 2027 By Mohammed Bello Doka When Nasir El-Rufai stood before the world in June 2022 and declared that 12 out of 14 northern APC governors had agreed to cede presidential power to the South, he was hailed as a statesman, a unifier, a northern leader with the courage to put national interest above regional ambition. He told reporters that day that a super majority of northern governors had taken a decision and that everyone, including the defiant Yahaya Bello, was bound by it . It was a moment of rare political sacrifice from a region that had grown accustomed to holding the reins of power. Today, as El-Rufai languishes in the detention facilities of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), the question that every thinking northerner must ask is this: What did the South do with that sacrifice? The answer is as devastating as it is simple. Silence. Complicity. Continued support for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu from southern political elites who have paid their media houses, their data boys, and their influencers not only to denigrate El-Rufai but to paint the entire North as a region of power-hungry traitors. And now, these same southern voices expect the North to trust zoning again in 2027. They expect northerners who can see, who can think, who have not been blinded by tribal sentiment, to once again hand over power to a region that has demonstrated exactly what it thinks of northern loyalty. Let us rewind to the beginning. Professor Ishaq Akintola, the founder of the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), has been remarkably candid about his role in this saga. In a press release dated March 23, 2026, Akintola confessed that MURIC was the first to demand a Yoruba Muslim president as far back as February 2021 . He and the Concerned Yoruba Muslim Scholars met and persuaded Tinubu to run. But they quickly realized that Yoruba Muslims alone could not deliver the presidency. They needed a handshake across the Niger. So they networked with northern Muslims and specifically sought out El-Rufai, whom they described as the only northern politician with the necessary political acumen to bring the North together behind Tinubu . The meeting between Akintola, other southwest leaders, and El-Rufai was not a casual affair. It was a strategic intervention. And here is the detail the southern establishment does not want you to remember: When Akintola and his delegation came to El-Rufai, the former governor was not on good terms with Tinubu. They were, by El-Rufai’s own admission, political adversaries. Akintola pleaded with El-Rufai to reconcile with Tinubu and to support the Yoruba Muslim project. And El-Rufai, against the wishes of many in the North, agreed . But where were the other southwest leaders? Who else from the region spoke out in that critical moment? The truth is, aside from Akintola and his small team of Islamic scholars, the southern political establishment was conspicuously quiet. They were happy to receive the North’s gift. They were ecstatic to watch El-Rufai publicly champion power shift, to watch him rebuff the naira redesign shenanigans that threatened Tinubu‘s election, to watch him accompany the candidate to Chatham House and defend the Muslim-Muslim ticket before an international audience . They were silent then because they were winning. They are silent now because silencing El-Rufai serves their purpose. MURIC warned of this betrayal as early as August 13, 2023, when the Senate first withheld El-Rufai’s ministerial nomination. In an emergency statement after its Central Think Tank meeting, MURIC declared that the non-confirmation was a major threat to future alliance between the North and the South-West. The group issued a chilling prophecy: "The North may not hobnob with the South-West again if the champion of the North-South alliance is shabbily treated" . Today, that prophecy is being fulfilled before our very