DSS forensic expert tells court $600,000 was allegedly set aside to bribe EFCC officials in El-Rufai trial

DSS forensic expert tells court $600,000 was allegedly set aside to bribe EFCC officials in El-Rufai trial

By: Tunji Okunlola

A Department of State Services (DSS) forensic examiner has told a Kaduna court that audio recordings analysed by his team point to $500,000 and a further $100,000 being earmarked to bribe officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and an intermediary to stop investigations into certain companies.

The witness, Segun Kayode, a senior DSS operative and digital forensics examiner, gave the evidence on Tuesday in the trial of former Kaduna State governor Nasir El-Rufai. The case is before Justice Darius Khobo of the Kaduna State High Court. The trial is being prosecuted by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), and El-Rufai has consistently denied the allegations against him. The allegation of bribery is the witness’s testimony and has not been tested or ruled on by the court.

The sitting lasted about nine hours. Justice Khobo adjourned the trial until November 30 and December 1, 2026.

How the analysis was done

Kayode told the court that his team analysed telephone call records and audio recordings after a formal request from the ICPC. The analysis covered numbers belonging to El-Rufai and people the witness described as his suspected associates, among them Jimi Lawal, AU Mustafa, Ahmadu Sule and Sam Darwish.

According to Kayode, the work was approved by the DSS Director-General and assigned by the Director of Counter-Terrorism. He said he obtained call data records from the department’s telecommunications intelligence unit through a secure server, following standard procedures for preserving electronic evidence.

He said he used IT tools to map relationships between El-Rufai and the other individuals, and Microsoft Excel worksheets to measure how often they communicated. Between October 25 and 28, 2025, he said the data showed repeated communications involving El-Rufai, his elder brother Bashir El-Rufai and Sam Darwish. That prompted a closer look at audio recordings from the department’s communication intelligence unit.

Handling the audio evidence

The witness said he immediately made an image of the original recording and four duplicate copies, keeping the original secured to protect its integrity. A Hausa-language expert on his team, identified as Aliyu Mainasara, transcribed the recording and translated it into English.

Kayode said the audio was also examined with industry-standard forensic tools to establish whether it was a genuine human recording or artificially generated. He said the analysis detected vocal frequency characteristics, but the account of his findings was cut off in the text available to me.