A former Kaduna State governor, Malam Nasir El-Rufa’i, has denied claims linking his administration to the abduction of a lecturer and social media commentator, Abubakar Idris, better known as Dadiyata.

Dadiyata, a lecturer in the Department of English and Linguistics at the Federal University Dutsinma, Katsina State, was abducted from his Kaduna home on August 2, 2019, by masked men who took him away in his own car shortly after he returned from work.

Since then, there has been no trace of him, no conclusive findings from any investigation, and no formal explanation from the authorities.

Human rights groups, including Amnesty International, had condemned the federal government over what it described as “silence and lack of action” on the case.

At a press briefing in Kaduna on Saturday, August 2, 2025, Country Director of Amnesty International Nigeria, Isa Sanusi, alleged that the circumstances surrounding the abduction suggested a targeted operation.

“This is the kind of disappearance that happens in authoritarian regimes, where the state or state-backed actors use abductions to spread fear and suppress dissent,” he had said.

Speaking during an interview on ARISE NEWS on Friday, the former governor said Dadiyata was not a critic of the Kaduna State Government but of the Kano State Government.

“Dadiyata’s timeline is still around, go and study it. He was not a fierce critic of the Kaduna State Government; he was a fierce critic of the Kano State Government. He’s from Kano, he’s a Kwankwasiyya guy, he lived in Kaduna and lectured at a university in Katsina State. Go and review his timeline. It was Ganduje that was his problem,” he said.

El-Rufa’i, also an opposition figure in the African Democratic Congress (ADC), added that he never knew about Dadiyata and only learnt of him after his family reported his abduction to the police.

“I didn’t even know him. We only got the report of Dadiyata’s existence and that he lived in Kaduna State after his family reported to the police that he was abducted as he was returning home in the evening,” he stated.

According to him, information gathered after the incident suggested that the abductors came from Kano.

“When we investigated, all that we could gather from his family was that the abductors came, took him, and they came from Kano. So if anybody is to be asked questions about the disappearance of Dadiyata, it’s the Kano State Government. It has nothing to do with the Kaduna State Government. We didn’t even know he existed. I didn’t even know he existed until he was abducted,” he said.

He further claimed that years after the incident, a police officer allegedly confessed to involvement in the abduction.

“Three years after Dadiyata was abducted, a policeman that was posted out of Kano to Ekiti State confessed to someone that they were sent from Kano and they took the guy, they abducted Dadiyata, and he felt bad about it. That’s the only thing I know,” he added.

The former governor maintained that while Dadiyata lived in Kaduna, his administration could not have provided protection for someone it was unaware of.

“It was not a Kaduna State problem. He lived in Kaduna State, and it was our duty to protect him. But how could we protect him when we didn’t even know he existed?” he said. (Daily Trust)