A coalition of 20 civil society organizations says the former Kaduna governor’s revelation — that a police officer admitted to abducting the missing activist on orders from Kano — constitutes evidence of state-sponsored crime that can no longer go unanswered.

By Our Correspondent  

Nearly seven years after armed men dragged social media activist Abubakar Idris — widely known as Dadiyata — from his home in the middle of the night, a bombshell television interview by a former governor has shattered the silence surrounding his disappearance and reignited calls for accountability.

Speaking on Arise Television on February 13, 2026, former Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai disclosed that a police officer confessed, roughly three years after the August 2019 abduction, to being part of the operation. According to El-Rufai, the officer stated that he and fellow operatives had been “sent from Kano” to seize Dadiyata from his Barnawa, Kaduna residence.

What El-Rufai did not disclose — and what a coalition of 20 Nigerian civil society organizations is now demanding answers about — is why that confession was never reported to investigators, and why the officer in question has apparently faced no consequences. “This revelation demands immediate and decisive action,” the Coalition Against Impunity (CAPI) said in a press statement released Monday. “Mr. El-Rufai’s admission constitutes prima facie evidence of systemic complicity in what amounts to a crime against humanity under international law.”

Dadiyata, a human rights defender who used social media to criticize government officials, was abducted on August 2, 2019. He has not been seen or heard from since. His family has spent over six years in a state of agonizing uncertainty, unable to grieve and unable to move on. CAPI notes that Dadiyata was not accused of any crime. His offense, in the eyes of those who ordered his abduction, was political speech — using a social media platform to criticize public officials, a right protected under the Nigerian Constitution.

In the Arise TV interview, El-Rufai attempted to distance himself from the case, describing Dadiyata as a critic of then-Kano Governor Abdullahi Ganduje rather than of his own administration. But CAPI and other rights groups say that framing is a deflection: Dadiyata lived in Kaduna State, was abducted from Kaduna State, and was therefore entitled to the full protection of the Kaduna State government — which El-Rufai led at the time.

The coalition also pointed to a since-deleted tweet posted by El-Rufai’s son, Bashir El-Rufai, four months after the abduction, which appeared to suggest that Dadiyata’s disappearance was a “consequence” of what the tweet called dangerous lies in the public space. The family has not publicly responded to the renewed attention on that post.

Critics argue that if police officers traveled from Kano to Kaduna to conduct an abduction of a prominent activist, Kaduna State security structures could not plausibly have been unaware. CAPI called this “the most troubling unanswered question” in the case. CAPI, backed by 20 signatory organizations ranging from the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights to Lawyers Without Borders Nigeria, has issued a set of demands it described as “non-negotiable.”

The coalition is calling on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to publicly acknowledge the case within 72 hours and establish an independent panel of inquiry with civil society participation and prosecutorial powers. It is also demanding that the Inspector General of Police summon El-Rufai for formal questioning under oath, that the confessing officer be identified and arrested within seven days, and that the Attorney General of the Federation investigate whether El-Rufai committed an offense by failing to report knowledge of a serious crime.

Additionally, CAPI announced it is formally petitioning the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and the International Criminal Court to take up the case.

Rights groups say Dadiyata’s case has become a litmus test for whether Nigeria’s institutions can function independently when the accused include powerful political figures. Six years of inaction by the police, they argue, is not coincidental — it reflects a deliberate suppression of accountability. “Officers operate with the knowledge that they can commit the gravest violations of human rights and face no repercussions,” CAPI said, “as long as their victims are politically inconvenient.”

The coalition cited Nigeria’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court — noting that enforced disappearances committed as part of a systematic attack on civilians can constitute crimes against humanity.

As of press time, neither the Nigerian Police Force, the Office of the Attorney General, nor representatives for El-Rufai had issued a public response to the coalition’s demands.