By Ayo Kehinde
Former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, has approached the Federal High Court in Abuja seeking N1 billion in damages against the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) over what he described as the unlawful invasion and search of his Abuja residence.
In the fundamental rights enforcement suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/345/2026, El-Rufai is asking the court to nullify a search warrant issued on February 4 by a Chief Magistrate of the FCT Magistrate’s Court, which authorized ICPC operatives and officers of the Nigeria Police Force to search his residence at House 12, Mambilla Street, Aso Drive, Abuja.
The former governor, through his legal team led by Oluwole Iyamu, SAN, contended that the warrant was “fundamentally defective, lacking specificity, riddled with material drafting errors, ambiguous in its execution parameters and issued without probable cause,” in violation of Section 37 of the 1999 Constitution.
El-Rufai argued that the execution of the warrant on February 19 at about 2 p.m. amounted to a gross violation of his constitutional rights to dignity of the human person, personal liberty, fair hearing, and privacy as guaranteed under Sections 34, 35, 36, and 37 of the Constitution.
He further urged the court to declare that any evidence obtained from the search is inadmissible, having been procured in breach of constitutional safeguards, and to restrain the ICPC, the Inspector-General of Police, and other respondents from relying on or tendering such evidence in any investigation, prosecution, or proceedings against him.
Among the seven reliefs sought, El-Rufai is asking the court to order the immediate return of all items seized from his residence, along with a detailed inventory of the items, and to award N1 billion as general, exemplary, and aggravated damages for trespass, unlawful seizure, psychological trauma, humiliation, distress, invasion of privacy, and reputational harm.
According to the breakdown contained in the suit, the former governor is seeking N300 million as compensatory damages for psychological trauma and emotional distress; N400 million as exemplary damages to deter future misconduct by law enforcement agencies; and N300 million as aggravated damages for what he described as the “malicious and oppressive conduct” of the respondents.
He also claimed N100 million as the cost of filing the suit, including legal fees.
In his grounds of argument, Iyamu submitted that the search warrant violated Sections 143 to 148 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) 2015 and Section 36 of the ICPC Act, stressing that the warrant failed to describe the items to be seized, contained typographical errors, and was addressed indiscriminately to “all officers,” thereby amounting to a general warrant.
He cited judicial authorities, including C.O.P. v. Omoh and Fawehinmi v. IGP, where Nigerian courts condemned vague and overbroad warrants as unconstitutional and prone to abuse.
An affidavit in support of the application, deposed to by Mohammed Shaba, a Principal Secretary to the former governor, alleged that ICPC and police officers invaded the residence without lawful authority, failed to comply with statutory safeguards, seized personal documents and electronic devices, and subjected El-Rufai to humiliation and psychological distress.
