Sanusi: ‘AGF Malami, Kano AG ordered my detention’

Sanusi says security operatives harassed and rushed him out of the palace without allowing him to pick up his personal belongings.

The dethroned Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi has said that the order for his arrest and banishment from Kano as well as his detention in Nasarawa state came from Abuja.

Sanusi accused Ibrahim Muktar, the Attorney General of Kano State, and Mr Abubakar Malami (SAN) the Attorney General of the Federation of instructing the Department of State Services and police to detain him.

The former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria also said that security operatives harassed and rushed him out of the palace without allowing him to pick up his personal belongings.

He added that upon his dethronement, an unnamed friend sent an aircraft to convey him and his family to Lagos, but the Kano State Commissioner of Police ordered him to be flown to Abuja in another aircraft without his family, Punch reports.

Sanusi receives El-Rufai in his Awe, Nasarawa apartment on March 13, 2020 (Twitter: @GovKaduna) Sanusi receives El-Rufai in his Awe, Nasarawa apartment on March 13, 2020 (Twitter: @GovKaduna) Pulse Nigeria

Sanusi is reported to have stated this in a suit he filed before the Federal High Court in Abuja on Thursday, March 12, 2020, to challenge his detention and confinement in Awe, a town in Nasarawa state.

On Friday, March 13, 2020, Justice Anwuli Chikere granted an interim order for Sanusi’s release from detention after his lawyer, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) urged the court to restore his rights to human dignity, personal liberty, freedom of association and movement in Nigeria.

The lawyer also prayed that Sanusi be allowed to move about in Nigeria apart from Kano in the interim.

While granting the application, Justice Chikere said, “An interim order is hereby made releasing the applicant from the detention and or confinement of the respondents and restoring the applicant’s rights to human dignity, personal liberty, freedom of association and movement in Nigeria, (apart from Kano State) pending the hearing and determination of the applicant’s originating summons.”

Four days after he was banished from Kano State, Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State picked up Sanusi from his banishment home in Awe on Friday, March 13, after observing Jumaa’t prayer in the town.