FACT-CHECK: Did El-Rufai Admit to Paying Bandits to Stop Killings in Southern Kaduna?

BY: Hafiz Rabiu 

Claim: 

On September 3, 2026, Minister of Defence Christopher Musa appeared on Channels Television’s Politics Today, where he discussed insecurity in Kaduna State and criticised the administration of former Governor Nasir El-Rufai.

Musa said: “We can never be happy with somebody who has deliberately planned for the killing of our people.”

He further alleged that El-Rufai had openly spoken about paying bandits, saying: “He told us he paid bandits.”

El-Rufai’s lawyers subsequently demanded a public retraction and ₦10 billion in compensation, arguing that the allegations were false and defamatory. They also demanded that Musa provide evidence supporting the allegation that El-Rufai deliberately planned killings

Verdict: 

UNPROVEN.

Full Text: 

In December 2016, while serving as Kaduna governor, El-Rufai told journalists that his administration had established a committee headed by retired General Martin Luther Agwai to investigate the causes of violence in Southern Kaduna.

El-Rufai said the committee traced part of the conflict to the 2011 post-election violence, during which, according to his account, some transhumance Fulani herders from countries including Niger, Cameroon, Chad, Mali and Senegal lost relatives and cattle.

He said some of those affected subsequently organised themselves and returned to seek revenge.

El-Rufai explained that his administration subsequently sent representatives to some of the affected communities in Nigeria and neighbouring countries to appeal for an end to the reprisals.

According to his account, some of the groups accepted the appeal, while others requested monetary compensation for cattle they had lost.

He said: “They said they have forgiven the death of human beings, but want compensation for cattle. We said no problem, and we paid some.”

A separate account published by The Nation records El-Rufai saying that the Agwai Committee recommended reaching out to transhumance Fulani and offering compensation for deaths and livestock losses on the condition that reprisals stopped.

The same account was also reported by THISDAY, which quoted El-Rufai as saying the outreach was intended to stop reprisals and that his government believed the approach had temporarily reduced attacks in Southern Kaduna.

El-Rufai’s 2016 remarks did use the term “banditry” when discussing the wider security crisis. In another interview, he described the violence as a criminal problem and said the perpetrators were criminals whose ethnicity or religion was irrelevant.

However, when specifically explaining the payments, El-Rufai did not say that his government was giving money to active armed groups to fund their operations or to continue killing people.

Instead, he described the recipients as aggrieved Fulani groups whom his administration had traced to communities in Nigeria and neighbouring countries, and said the payments were compensation for cattle losses connected to earlier violence.

The available evidence therefore supports the narrower statement that El-Rufai acknowledged paying some Fulani groups during a government-led peace and reconciliation effort.

It does not, by itself, support the broader assertion that he admitted to paying bandits as a means of financing or sponsoring criminal violence.

The distinction is also reflected in subsequent reporting. In January 2017, General Martin Luther Agwai, who headed the committee El-Rufai cited, said the committee had recommended dialogue and compensation for all aggrieved parties, not only herdsmen.

In February 2017, El-Rufai again explained that his administration was implementing recommendations attributed to the Agwai committee and described the payments as compensation intended to prevent further attacks.

Verification:

Gen. Musa publicly accused El-Rufai of deliberately planning the killing of people in Southern Kaduna. However, the interview report and subsequent coverage reviewed for this fact-check do not identify a specific order, document, operational instruction, payment record or other evidence establishing that El-Rufai deliberately planned killings.

The 2016 record confirms that El-Rufai acknowledged that his administration had made payments to some Fulani groups in connection with efforts to end the violence in Southern Kaduna. In an interview with journalists in December 2016, El-Rufai explained that a committee headed by retired General Martin Luther Agwai had investigated the origins of the conflict and linked part of the violence to the 2011 post-election crisis.

He said some Fulani herders from Niger, Cameroon, Chad, Mali and Senegal had lost relatives and cattle during the violence, subsequently organised themselves and returned to seek revenge. El-Rufai said his administration then sent representatives to trace some of these groups and appeal to them to stop the killings. According to his account, some of those approached accepted the appeal, while others requested monetary compensation for cattle they had lost, after which, he said, “we paid some.”

The same account provides important context for understanding what El-Rufai said the payments were intended to achieve. He described the government’s approach as an attempt to persuade the aggrieved groups to forgive the deaths of their members and stop retaliatory attacks, while the specific payments he referred to were connected to compensation for cattle losses. 

Channels Television’s contemporaneous report also quoted El-Rufai as saying that the government had contacted Fulani community leaders in neighbouring countries and that some of those approached requested compensation before agreeing to stop the violence.

There is, however, a distinction between this admission and the broader assertion that El-Rufai admitted to financing active bandits. Although El-Rufai discussed the wider violence as “banditry” and described those responsible as criminals, his explanation of the payments did not state that the money was provided to finance attacks or to encourage continued criminal activity. Rather, he presented the payments as compensation made during an effort to secure an end to reprisals.

The evidence therefore establishes that El-Rufai acknowledged making payments to some Fulani groups during the government’s efforts to resolve the Southern Kaduna crisis. What the available record does not independently establish is that those payments amounted to the financing of active bandit operations or that they constituted evidence that El-Rufai deliberately planned the killings in Southern Kaduna. Those are broader conclusions that require additional evidence beyond El-Rufai’s 2016 admission about the payments.

Conclusion: 

The Defence Minister’s statement that El-Rufai “told us he paid bandits” is yet to be substantiated with accurate evidence if interpreted as an admission that the former governor financed active bandits.

El-Rufai did acknowledge in 2016 that his administration paid some Fulani groups after identifying them as affected by earlier violence and seeking to persuade them to end reprisals. Contemporary reports show that he described the payments as compensation, particularly for cattle losses, and linked the effort to recommendations from the Martin Luther Agwai committee.

However, the available evidence in public domain does not establish that these payments amounted to funding active bandit groups or sponsoring killings.

Similarly, Musa’s separate allegation that El-Rufai deliberately planned killings in Southern Kaduna remains unsubstantiated based on the evidence publicly presented with the allegation.