Reported by: Ijeoma G | Edited by: Oravbiere Osayomore Promise.
Less than three weeks after the anti‑graft agency slapped the former governor with an amended nine‑count charge in the same case, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission has escalated its legal battle against Nasir Ahmad El‑Rufai. On 17 April 2026, the commission filed an entirely new 11‑count charge at the Federal High Court in Kaduna, accusing the former Kaduna State governor and seven other defendants of fraud and money laundering linked to a ₦10.8 billion Closed‑Circuit Television (CCTV) security project. The charges, obtained exclusively by Premium Times, bring the total criminal indictments that the embattled former governor is now contesting to at least three separate proceedings before different courts in Kaduna and Abuja.
The new indictment charges El‑Rufai, a former Kaduna government official, a top executive of IHS Towers, and five companies with offences committed under the Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022. The corporate defendants named are Singularity Network Security Limited, Solar Life Nigeria Limited, Knowledge Investment Nigeria Limited, Intercellular Nigeria Limited and Noble Coast Resources Limited. The individuals cited alongside El‑Rufai are Jimi Lawal, a former Kaduna State government official, and Darwish Mohammad, Senior Vice‑President of IHS Towers and former Chief Executive Officer of IHS Nigeria. The offences are alleged to have occurred between September 2015 and November 2022.
Count one of the charge sheet lays the foundation for the entire case. The ICPC alleges that El‑Rufai “unlawfully approved the award of an ₦8.68 billion CCTV contract in December 2015 to Singularity Network Security Limited, a firm the commission said lacked the requisite competence, in breach of procurement laws”. The remaining ten counts trace the movement of huge sums of money that the commission says were proceeds of that allegedly defective contract. The sums involved run from tens of millions of naira to nearly a billion naira at a single stretch.
In September 2020, the ICPC claims, Singularity Network Security Limited, Mr Mohammad and another IHS executive, Emad Sukker, received ₦324.8 million suspected to be proceeds of fraud. Three months earlier, in January 2020, the same defendants allegedly received a further ₦83.1 million linked to unlawful acts, and on a separate occasion that same month they took possession of ₦18.16 million also derived from fraud. In October 2019, the ICPC alleges, Mr Lawal, Singularity Network Security Limited and Solar Life Nigeria Limited received ₦925 million believed to be fraudulent proceeds; and in September 2017, the same parties took possession of ₦65 million from unlawful acts.
The commission also charges Singularity Network Security Limited and Intercellular Nigeria Limited with receiving ₦47.5 million of suspected fraudulent money in October 2019. In a separate count, the ICPC discloses that in the same year Singularity Network Security Limited and one of El‑Rufai’s sons, Bashir El‑Rufai – who the agency says is “at large” – allegedly received ₦30 million linked to fraud. Notably, Bashir El‑Rufai is not named as a defendant in the case but appears only as a conspirator in count 8. Further counts allege that in October 2019, Singularity Network Security Limited and Noble Coast Resources Limited received ₦386.2 million of unlawful proceeds and also took possession of ₦23 million derived from fraud. The final count alleges that in November 2022, Singularity Network Security Limited and Intercellular Nigeria Limited received ₦250 million suspected to be proceeds of unlawful acts.
The fresh 11‑count charge is the third set of criminal proceedings that the ICPC has lodged against El‑Rufai since March 2026. The commission is separately prosecuting him before a Kaduna State High Court on amended charges that include the alleged fraudulent payment of ₦11 billion to an unregistered entity for a light rail project that was never executed. The former governor is also being prosecuted in a federal high court in Abuja over an alleged security breach in which he is accused of bugging the phone of the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu.
El‑Rufai, who has consistently denied any wrongdoing, did not immediately react to the latest charges. However, his legal team has previously challenged the ICPC’s tactics, and a member of his family dismissed earlier allegations as a “media war”. The case has been filed at the Federal High Court in Kaduna, but no judge has yet been assigned and no hearing date fixed. The ICPC has not applied for the defendants’ arrest, and there is no indication that the court has issued any warrant. The commission is expected to apply for the defendants to be summoned to take their plea at the first sitting.
For the anti‑graft agency, the new charges represent a significant widening of the legal net, turning what was once a single‑focus investigation into a multi‑themed prosecution that spans fraud in procurement, money laundering, and the alleged diversion of public funds into private pockets. For El‑Rufai, who has vowed to clear his name, the road ahead is now more complicated than ever. The nation’s courts will have to determine whether the trail of naira notes that the ICPC claims flowed from a single ₦8.68 billion contract indeed constitutes criminal conduct – or whether the former governor can finally prove that the allegations are no more than a media circus.
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