El-Rufai's doctor denies forgery claims

PREMIUM TIMES has obtained a statement written by Bello Abubakar, the oncologist facing forgery charges over a medical report allegedly used to secure bail for former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai.

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In the statement, Mr Abubakar admitted writing the report but said he does not know the man accused of using the medical report to depose an affidavit in the former governor’s favour.

Mr Abubakar, a Chief Consultant Clinical/Radiation Oncologist at the National Hospital, Abuja, wrote a voluntary statement to the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), given in the presence of his lawyer, Rabiu Suleiman of Mahmud SAN and Co.

“I cannot recall anybody with the name Mohammed Bala Aliyu, and I have never deposed or given him any order or authorised him to depose an affidavit,” he said.

The ICPC had, in a four-count charge, accused Mr Abubakar of knowingly issuing a false medical report to mislead a public officer and support Mr El-Rufai’s bail application in a case marked KDH/KAD/ICPC/02/2026, pending before the Kaduna State High Court.

According to the charge sheet, Mr Abubakar authored the report — titled “Medical Report and Expert Opinion for Urgent Medical Intervention” and dated 10 June 2026 — knowing its contents were false, and presented it to a Commissioner for Oaths in Kaduna State before it was filed in court.

A third count accuses him of conspiring with one Aliyu Bala to fabricate the report specifically to enable Mr Bala to depose a further affidavit backing the bail application, contrary to Section 79 of the Penal Code.

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Mr Abubakar denied knowing Mr Bala in his statement. “I have no idea who Mohammed Bala Aliyu is and never had any dealing or contact with the same person. Never,” he said.

Doctor’s account of El-Rufai consultations

In his statement, Mr Abubakar gave an account of his relationship with Mr El-Rufai, saying he first met the former governor through his wife, whose first child he had delivered, before Mr El-Rufai later became his patient.

He said Mr El-Rufai was not a registered patient at his private clinic, the Belam Cancer Centre in Jabi, Abuja, but was instead registered at the National Hospital around 2005, where Mr Abubakar has worked since its inception in September 1999.

He said he consulted Mr El-Rufai at the National Hospital not more than four times between 2017 and 2025, none of which were documented, as they did not require it. In 2025, he said, contact was limited to phone conversations while the former governor was abroad.

Mr Abubakar said he consulted Mr El-Rufai three times between June and July 2026, while the ex-governor was in ICPC detention, after being invited by the family. Two of the consultations took place at the ICPC, in the presence of the commission’s clinic staff, with his entry documented at the reception; the third was at the National Hospital.

Narrating a consultation on 9 July, he said he attended with his senior registrar, in line with standard practice, and that the hospital’s Chief Medical Director and Director of Clinical Services later joined the session. In total, he said, five clinical staff and Mr El-Rufai’s two wives were present, with no other persons in the room.

Mr Abubakar said photographs taken while he handed a report to Mr El-Rufai’s wives, in the presence of ICPC operatives, were taken in the waiting area, not in the consultation room, and that he was inadvertently captured in one of them before returning to the Oncology department to attend to an admitted patient.

On report procedure and diagnosis

Explaining how medical reports are issued at the National Hospital, Mr Abubakar said a patient’s request is forwarded to the consultant, who has discretion to write the report. Once completed, he said, the report is stamped in the office of the Director of Clinical Services before being handed to the patient.

He said it was not his responsibility to determine whether such reports are registered.

Asked about Mr El-Rufai’s histological diagnosis, Mr Abubakar declined to answer, saying the former governor had not authorised him to disclose it and that doing so would be unethical.

Hospital denies authorising report.

Court filings show the National Hospital’s Chief Medical Director, Raji Mahmud, is expected to testify that Mr Abubakar issued the report in Mr El-Rufai’s favour without conducting the required medical examination, and handed it to the family to support the bail application.

The CMD is also expected to tell the court that the hospital, responding to ICPC letters, stated it did not authorise the report attributed to Mr Abubakar, and that investigations established the document was false and did not follow due process.

ICPC petitions medical council

The ICPC has separately petitioned the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN), seeking professional sanction against Mr Abubakar. In a letter to the Medical and Dental Practitioners’ Investigation Panel, the commission’s chairman asked that a formal complaint be lodged against the professor, citing an affidavit dated 7 July 2026 before the High Court of Nasarawa State.

The petition, reviewed by PREMIUM TIMES, urged the panel to conduct “a thorough and swift investigation” into the allegations. An acknowledgement copy shows the MDCN received the complaint on 8 July.

READ ALSO: EXCLUSIVE: Alleged Fake Medical Report: ICPC reports El-Rufai’s doctor to Medical and Dental Council

Mr El-Rufai is facing multiple corruption-related prosecutions instituted by the ICPC, including an alleged N8.68 billion CCTV surveillance contract fraud case before the Federal High Court in Kaduna, and a separate case before the Kaduna State High Court over alleged abuse of office and procurement violations.

The former governor has pleaded not guilty in the various cases and accused the federal and Kaduna governments of using the prosecutions to keep him in detention.

PREMIUM TIMES had earlier reported the ICPC’s arrest of Mr Abubakar over the alleged false statement.