Former Kano State governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, has replied Nasir el-Rufai, former governor of Kaduna state, and Abdullahi Ganduje, over the disappearance of Abubakar Idris, a social media commentator known as Dadiyata.
Dadiyata was abducted on August 2, 2019, by unidentified gunmen as he drove into his residence in Barnawa, Kaduna State.
His disappearance sparked outrage and multiple legal actions by his family and civil society organisations.
In 2020, a Federal High Court in Kaduna ordered the Department of State Security (DSS) and other agencies to produce him, but the agency denied having him in custody.
Speaking on Arise Television on Friday, el-Rufai denied any involvement in the disappearance.
“Dadiyata was not a fierce critic of the Kaduna state government. He was a fierce critic of the Kano state government,” he said.
“He is a Kwankwasiya guy; he lives in Kaduna and lectures at a university in Katsina state, but is a fierce critic not of Kaduna state. Go and review his timeline.
“It was Ganduje that was his problem. I didn’t even know him. We only got the report of the Dadiyata’s existence and the fact that he lives in Kaduna state after the family reported to the police that he was abducted as he was returning home in the evening.
“If anybody is to be asked about the disappearance of Dadiyata, it is the Kano state government; it has nothing to do with the Kaduna state government. We didn’t even know he existed.”
El-Rufai also claimed that a police officer made a confession years later.
“Three years after Dadiyata was abducted, a policeman who was posted out of Kano to Ekiti state confessed to someone that they were sent from Kano and they abducted Dadiyata, and he felt bad about it,” he said.
“That’s the only thing I know; it was not a Kaduna state problem.”
However, a December 23, 2019, post on X by Bashir el-Rufai, son of the former Kaduna governor, resurfaced amid the renewed controversy.
The post was made about four months after Dadiyata’s disappearance as some Nigerians demanding for justice under the hashtag #WhereIsDadiyata.
“The same clowns who encouraged him when he was creating false stories and capitalizing on lies that could endanger lives solely for political ends are the same individuals trending hashtags asking #WhereisDadiyata. Dangerous lies in the public space have consequences,” Bashir wrote.
Ganduje, however, through a statement signed by Muhammad Garba, former Kano commissioner for information and internal affairs, rejected the allegation.
He described the claim as “reckless, unfounded and a clear attempt to shift responsibility for an incident that occurred entirely within Kaduna State”.
The governor said Dadiyata lived and operated in Kaduna and was widely known for criticising the Kaduna government.
“Everyone in Kaduna knew the nature of the criticism he made and who it was directed at,” he said.
The former Kano governor questioned el-Rufai’s claim about a police confession.
“It is difficult to reconcile a claim of having no prior knowledge of the individual with simultaneously making detailed assertions about who was responsible,” Ganduje said.
“The family deserves closure. What they do not deserve is for this tragic matter to become an instrument of political blame-shifting.”
