An old tweet by Bashir El-Rufai has emerged to contradict former Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai’s recent assertion that social media activist Abubakar Idris, known as Dadiyata, was not a critic of his administration.
During an interview on Arise Television on Friday, February 13, 2026, El-Rufai denied any connection to Dadiyata’s disappearance, claiming the activist primarily targeted the Kano State government under former Governor Abdullahi Ganduje. “Dadiyata is a critic of the Kano government. He was a fierce critic of the Kano state government,” El-Rufai said. “He’s from Kano. He lives in Kaduna and lectures at a university in Katsina State. It was Ganduje that was his problem. I don’t even know him.”
However, a December 23, 2019 tweet from Bashir El-Rufai appears to undermine this claim. Posted approximately four and a half months after Dadiyata’s disappearance, the tweet seemingly mocked those demanding answers about his whereabouts.
“The same clowns who encouraged him when he was creating false stories and capitalizing on lies that could endanger lives solely for political ends are the same individuals trending hashtags asking #WhereisDadiyata,” Bashir wrote. “Dangerous lies in the public space have consequences.”
The tweet’s tone and content suggest familiarity with Dadiyata’s social media activity and criticism, contradicting the elder El-Rufai’s claim of being unaware of the activist’s existence. Dadiyata, a vocal social media commentator, was abducted on August 2, 2019, when unidentified gunmen seized him from his home in Barnawa, Kaduna. Despite widespread calls for investigation from civil society groups and international human rights organizations, his whereabouts remain unknown more than six years later.
El-Rufai maintained in his recent interview that Kaduna authorities only learned of Dadiyata after his family reported the abduction to police, stating: “We only got a report of Dadiyata’s existence after his family reported to the police that he was abducted. That is the only thing I know, but it was not a problem for Kaduna State.”
The resurfaced tweet has reignited questions about what the former Kaduna administration knew regarding Dadiyata and his activism prior to his disappearance.
