Activist Steven Kefas Raises Alarm Over Threat To Kidnap Him By Kaduna Cabinet Member

An Activist and Social media commentator in Kaduna State, Steven Kefas, has raised alarm that unidentified men are threatening to kidnap him.

Kefas raised the alarm in a letter written by his counsel, Gloria Mabelam Ballason of Mivel Legals and addressed to the Kaduna State Commissioner of Police.

Dated 25th May and titled THREATS OF ABDUCTION OF STEVEN KEFAS BY UNIDENTIFIED MEN AND VERIFIED FALSE ALLEGATIONS BY SAMUEL ARUWAN AGAINST STEVEN KEFAS THAT APPEAR TO FUEL THE THREATS, the letter appealed to the police boss to deploy his good office to investigate and find out the identity of persons “claiming to be security agents under his command, who have been threatening, intimidating and harassing our client.”

Specifically, the letter said the “campaign of intimidation and harassment against our client”, may have been propelled by the “false allegations” by the Commissioner for Internal Security in the state, Samuel Aruwan against Kefas.

“Our instruction is that on or about the 24 April, 2020, our client put out a tweet of a headline report by Zenger News, a Washington-based media organisation on his twitter timeline. The headline report was on an attack at Ungwan Magaji, Kaura Local Government Area of Kaduna State,” the letter reads briefly.

The letter said few hours after Kefas  put out the tweet, he received a call from a source who works closely with the state government, informing him that the tweet did not go down well with the government.

Also, he was informed by the source that security agents had been instructed to launch a manhunt for him.

“No one disputed the authenticity or content of the tweet under reference. Subsequently, our client received a sequence of calls from callers with concealed identities. The callers, who all sounded male, would request whereabouts of our client and when he wouldn’t say, they threatened to unmask his whereabouts and abduct him to a location in Kaduna of their choosing,” the letter continued.

“An anonymous caller with the number 08069072765 called our client several times and asked our client where he was and when again our client did not reveal his whereabouts, the caller again retorted that they would get our client no matter where he was.

“These callers have persistently refused to disclose their reasons for asking for our client’s whereabouts or for seeking or threatening to abduct him. However, these calls appear to have been succeeded by manifestly false accusations against our client by the Kaduna State Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs, Samuel Aruwan.”

Furthermore, the letter attached a copy of Aruwan’s tweet of May 13th, where he titled it ‘Clarification on a Trending Fake News and Mischief.’

The tweet reads: “Yesterday, we visited the Assemblies of God Church in Kabrasha, Chikun Local Government as you will see in the video. The church was damaged following the military’s onslaughts against bandits in the area last Thursday. I also stated that Kaduna State Government will repair the damaged church, and indeed progress has been made in that regard. Suddenly one Steven Kefas and some merchants of fake news and mischief are twisting the story to say I made the comments in relation to yesterday’s killings in Kajuru local government. This is a blatant lie, a sad case of blackmail and the usual demonization from such quarters.”

It said the activist did not write anything remotely connected to Aruwan’s allegations against him and the commissioner himself had not “retracted nor apologized for the grave error,” adding that since the allegation, their client has been exposed to “vicious threats and public odium that seek to accuse and link him to the insecurity in the state including a threat from a local government official.”

Also, it maintained that the activist has reason to believe that the threats against him by the undisclosed characters are connected with the instigation of Aruwan’s “concocted falsehoods”

It maintained that the commissioner may indeed know the authors of the threats, notwithstanding his current office, adding that he was not above the law.

The letter made reference to the abduction of Abubakar Idris, also known as ‘Dadiyata’ since August 2019,  blaming it on insecurity in Kaduna. It said the activist was kidnapped by men who reportedly claim to be security agents.

“As you can imagine, our client’s safety is endangered. He is a law abiding citizen and has nothing to fear from law enforcement agents. However, lawful agents of the law also have no reason to use disguised numbers to issue threats of abduction against citizens. That is not provided for under any law in Nigeria,” the letter concluded.

Recall that Kefas was released from detention in November 2019, after spending 150 days for alleged incitement and defamatory comments against the chairman of Kajuru Local Government Area of the state, Cafra Caino.