Ministerial list: Ignore El-Rufai, others with corruption allegations, group tells Tinubu

<p>A group under the aegis of Forum for Transparency and Accountability in Governance has urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu not to succumb to pressures by any politician with pending allegation of fraud related cases in court or at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC) to be appointed into his cabinet in guise of party loyal member.</p>, <p>The call on the President was at the backdrop of the much expected list of Ministerial nominees by the 10th Senate which President Tinubu has a statutory period of 60 days to make the list available to the upper legislative Chamber for screening.</p>, <p>The transparency group in a statement jointly signed by its Convener, Dr Bala Musa Mustapha, Secretary General, Mr Nouel Malama and Director of Publicity, Nafisa Hamid Jika respectively, maintained that President Tinubu should tread with caution and not appoint politicians with questionable character into his cabinet.</p>, <p>The group emphasized that the former Governor of Kaduna State, Malam Nasir El-Rufai should be kept at arm’s length and be isolated from the corridor of power if the present administration should be taken seriously, given that he is standing trial for allegedly embezzling N32 billion revenue from sales of Federal Government Houses between 2005 and 2007 when he was the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory.</p>, <p>The group recalled that Justice Binta Nyako-led Federal High Court ruled on 19th November, 2019, that Malam Nasir El-Rufai lacked powers to stop the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) from investigating and prosecuting him over fraud allegations.</p>, <p>Justice Nyako in her judgement in a suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/60/09 which was filed by El-Rufai where he listed 13 respondents including the EFCC, FG and others, seeking to stop his prosecution, the Court in the celebrated judgement insisted that El-Rufai must account for the whereabout of N32 billion.</p>, <p>The forum maintained that the prosecution of El-Rufai was progressing at the Federal High Court until he became