Nasir El-Rufai wants Justice R.M. Aikawa off the 10-count corruption trial that accuses the former Kaduna governor of laundering N579.6 million and $1.1 million. In a 9 April petition to Chief Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, he claims the Federal High Court judge is tainted by unresolved bias complaints already lodged with the National Judicial Council and the court's Chief Judge. A bail hearing remains fixed for 14 April.
El-Rufai argues that letting Justice Aikawa continue exposes the judiciary to "judicial capture," risks an "almost certain appellate reversal" and would leave him suffering "irreparable injustice and extended loss of personal liberty." He asks the CJN to move the file to any other judge in the Kaduna division and to forward the judge's conduct to the NJC's Preliminary Assessment Committee.
The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission filed the charges, which centre on alleged abuse of office during El-Rufai's time as governor.
El-Rufai's petition is a calculated attempt to turn a routine bail hearing into a referendum on Justice Aikawa's credibility, betting that the CJN would rather reshuffle the bench than risk a messy public fight over judicial integrity. By bundling the NJC complaints, the shared Kaduna venue and the spectre of appellate reversal, he is forcing the Supreme Court administrator to choose between administrative convenience and the appearance of protecting one of her own.
The move lands in a judiciary already jittery about high-profile defendants shopping for favourable courts and a political class that treats corruption trials as chess matches. Kaduna has only two Federal High Court judges; reassigning the case within the division still leaves it inside the same courthouse, undercutting El-Rufai's claim of geographic neutrality yet exposing how thin the federal bench is in the North-West.
For ordinary Nigerians, the immediate effect is another delay in a case that started in 2025; every adjournment pushes the possibility of recovery of the allegedly looted N579 million further into the distance. If the CJN obliges, the new judge will start afresh on bail arguments and likely trial dates, extending the cycle of adjournments that has become the default cost of prosecuting former governors.
This is part of a wider pattern: since 2015, nearly every ex-governor facing corruption charges has sought recusal or forum shopping, turning the judiciary into a battleground of technicalities rather than a place where stolen funds are traced and returned.
