Interim Deputy National Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, has not tweeted any fresh updates from the Yellow House headquarters of the State Security Service (SSS) in Abuja.

This, according to News Express Publisher Isaac Umunna, who has been detained at the Yellow House as well as at the Shangisha Lagos Office of the Nigerian secret police, is an indication that el-Rufai is now in the grip of the SSS and undergoing interrogation.

“Once you enter the SSS premises and register your name, you are made to put off all phones and electronic devices and hand them over to the people at the Gate House before you are made to go to the Reception and wait until those to interrogate you are ready to receive you,” Umunna, who has from time to time had problems with the SSS in connection with his journalism work, said.

He added that “even if anyone was allowed to accompany el-Rufai to the Reception, they cannot follow him into the interrogation room, meaning that el-Rufai would have to face his interrogators alone.”

El-Rufai had in his last tweet over an hour ago informed that Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi and Dr. Chris Ngige, Senator Representing Anambra Central, were barred from following him into the SSS Headquarters. “Inside SSS HQ, they are now saying that Governor Amaechi and. Senator Ngige will not allowed into the building after working 500m...impunity,” he had tweeted.

El-Rufai did not indicate whether any of the others with him would be allowed to go in with him. He had earlier tweeted thrice in quick succession thus: “On the way to SSS HQ with Governor Rotimi Amaechi, APC National Secretary, Treasurer, Hubert Shaiyen and other party leaders and AU Mustapha.”

“All we demanded was a warrant as required by law. They have shown one to my lawyer over the weekend. We will report & hear them out.”

“We are resisting lawlessness & impunity. Gov. Amaechi suffers this in Rivers. I am honored that Amaechi & APC are supportive of that stand!”

News Express reports that El-Rufai had been invited last Thursday by SSS in connection with a newspaper interview in which he predicted bloody general elections next year but he insisted that he would not honour the invitation except the SSS obtained a court warrant. He thereafter disappeared from his Maitama home in the Nigerian capital and could not be traced by SSS operatives who stormed the place on Friday. El-Rufai was also not in his second Abuja house at Imani Estate when the SSS operatives went there to look for him.

•Photo shows el-Rufai.

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