Former Kaduna State governor, Malam Nasir El-Rufa’i, has rejected allegations linking his administration to the abduction of lecturer and social media commentator Abubakar Idris Dadiyata
Dadiyata, a lecturer in the Department of English and Linguistics at the Federal University Dutsinma, Katsina State, was kidnapped from his Kaduna home on August 2, 2019, by masked assailants who took him in his car shortly after he returned from work. His whereabouts remain unknown, and investigations have yielded no definitive results.
Human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, have condemned the federal government for its perceived inaction. At a press briefing on August 2, 2025, Amnesty International Nigeria’s Country Director, Isa Sanusi, described the abduction as indicative of a targeted operation.
“This is the kind of disappearance that happens in authoritarian regimes, where the state or state-backed actors use abductions to spread fear and suppress dissent,” he said.
During an interview on ARISE NEWS on Friday, El-Rufa’i said Dadiyata was not a critic of the Kaduna State Government, but of the Kano State Government.
“Dadiyata’s timeline is still around, go and study it. He was not a fierce critic of the Kaduna State Government; he was a fierce critic of the Kano State Government. He’s from Kano, he’s a Kwankwasiyya guy, he lived in Kaduna and lectured at a university in Katsina State. Go and review his timeline. It was Ganduje that was his problem,” El-Rufa’i said.
He added that he only learned of Dadiyata’s existence after the family reported the abduction to the police.
“I didn’t even know him. We only got the report of Dadiyata’s existence and that he lived in Kaduna State after his family reported to the police that he was abducted as he was returning home in the evening,” he stated.
El-Rufa’i said investigations suggested that the abductors came from Kano.
“When we investigated, all that we could gather from his family was that the abductors came, took him, and they came from Kano. So if anybody is to be asked questions about the disappearance of Dadiyata, it’s the Kano State Government. It has nothing to do with the Kaduna State Government. We didn’t even know he existed,” he said.
He also claimed that a police officer later confessed to being involved in the abduction.
“Three years after Dadiyata was abducted, a policeman that was posted out of Kano to Ekiti State confessed to someone that they were sent from Kano and they took the guy, they abducted Dadiyata, and he felt bad about it. That’s the only thing I know,” El-Rufa’i added.
The former governor insisted that his administration could not have protected Dadiyata while he lived in Kaduna because they were unaware of his presence.
“It was not a Kaduna State problem. He lived in Kaduna State, and it was our duty to protect him. But how could we protect him when we didn’t even know he existed?” he said.
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