Nigeria’s Ambassador to Germany, Femi Fani-Kayode, has alleged that former Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai, once planned to set the premises of African Independent Television (AIT) on fire during his tenure as Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) under the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Fani-Kayode made the claim in a post on his X account on Sunday while reacting to a post by Jackson Ude, publisher of Pointblank News.
According to him, Ude had earlier written about El-Rufai’s alleged attempts to shut down the television station and seize the land on which it was built during the early 2000s.
Responding to the claim, Fani-Kayode said he could confirm the allegations, insisting that El-Rufai not only attempted to close the station but also moved to confiscate surrounding land that had been legally acquired by the late Raymond Dokpesi, founder of AIT.
He further alleged that some buildings belonging to the media organisation were demolished despite existing court orders restraining such actions.
Fani-Kayode claimed that there were additional details about the dispute that were not included in Ude’s account. According to him, the most serious allegation involved an alleged plan to burn down the television station after El-Rufai was directed to stop actions against Dokpesi and AIT.
He said the alleged plan was eventually leaked to several senior officials within Obasanjo’s administration, prompting opposition from key members of the government.
Among those he mentioned were former Chief of Staff to the President, Abdullahi Mohammed; former presidential spokesperson Remi Oyo; former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Nuhu Ribadu; and former presidential political adviser Akin Osuntokun.
Fani-Kayode also mentioned the current Kaduna State governor, Uba Sani, who at the time served as Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, as well as himself and other officials who he said opposed the alleged plan.
According to him, their intervention ensured that the alleged plot was halted before it could be carried out.
He added that if the plan had not been stopped, the fire would allegedly have been blamed on an electrical fault.
Fani-Kayode also used the post to defend the media environment under Obasanjo’s administration, saying journalists were not suppressed despite strong criticism of the government.
He cited the late Sam Nda-Isaiah, founder of Leadership Newspaper, as one of the administration’s most vocal critics, noting that his weekly columns were often critical of the government at the time.
