Just in: DSS detains police, immigration officers over El-Rufai’s return to Nigeria

2026-03-03 - 13:08

By Soni Daniel, Abuja Five security officers, who attended to former Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai at the Namdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja on February 12, 2026, have been arrested for compromising their professional standards. The five men, who are drawn from the Nigeria Police Force, the Department of State Services, the Nigeria Immigration Service and Aviation Security, allegedly took bribes to grant the former governor entry into restricted security areas at the airport and, by so doing, obstructed security operations in what the DSS describes as an ‘unprecedented manner’. Giving the details of the five men, a security official said Ayuba Yakubu, an assistant superintendent of police; Mutala Inuwa, a DSS operative; Najeeb Murtala, an assistant superintendent of immigration; and Musa Adamu and Salihu Victor, who are all from Aviation Security, AVSEC, all confessed to receiving bribes to facilitate the unauthorised entry into restricted areas at the NAIA on the date El-Rufai arrived from overseas. The official statement from the security agency said on Tuesday: “At the end of a joint investigation by the Department of State Services (DSS), the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) and the Federal Ministry of Aviation, five officers have been detained. They are Ayuba Yakubu, Murtala Inuwa, Najeeb Murtala, Musa Adamu and Salihu Victor. “They have all confessed to receiving bribes to facilitate unauthorised entry into restricted areas, to obstruct lawful security operations in an unprecedented manner. “They have been handed over to the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) for prosecution. The statement, however, indicated that other officers from the NIS and NCS who did not take bribes but abused their uniforms to facilitate unauthorised access will still face administrative action.