The National Judicial Council (NJC) has notified Mallam Nasir El-Rufai that his petition against Justice R. M. Aikawa of the Federal High Court is before its Preliminary Complaints Assessment Committee.

El-Rufai’s counsels had drawn the attention of Justice Aikawa to this pending petition on 24 March 2026 when the ICPC case against El-Rufai came before him. Justice Aikawa, however, refused to recuse himself, opting to continue with proceedings.

The update came in a 24 March 2026 letter from the NJC to El-Rufai. Signed by Ahmad Gambo Saleh, the Council’s secretary, the NJC explained that its procedure is to forward petitions to the judge concerned in the interest of fair hearing. Afterwards, the petition, along with the judge’s response, is then forwarded to the Preliminary Complaints Assessment Committee to determine whether or not a prima facie case has been established.

It attributed the delay in the process to the non-receipt of the judge’s response until nine months after the petition was forwarded to him. The NJC said it had acted promptly to forward the 18 March 2025 petition to Justice Aikawa on 21 March 2025. However, the NJC said that it did not receive a response from the judge as at when El-Rufai sent his reminder letter of 6 November 2025. That letter prompted the NJC to send its own reminder letter to the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court on the matter. Following this, the NJC finally received a response dated 15 December 2025 from Justice Aikawa.

The NJC letter said that “when your petition was received, the Honourable, the Chief Justice of Nigeria acted immediately by forwarding same to Hon. Justice R. M. Aikawa vide our letter dated 21st March, 2025 ( copy hereto attached). However, the Respondent Judge did not respond to the petition until your first reminder dated 06 November 2025 was received, which made the Honourable Chief Justice of Nigeria to write a reminder letter dated 27 November 2025 to the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Hon. Justice J. T. Tsoho, OFR (copy hereto attached).

“It was after the reminder by His Lordship, the Chief Justice of Nigeria that Hon. Justice R.M. Aikawa forwarded his response dated 15 December 2025.”

The NJC explained that the matter is now before its Preliminary Complaints Assessment Committee that will look into the Petition and make recommendation to Council as to whether or not a prima facie case has been established against the Judge.