Prof. Bello Abubakar, the oncologist facing forgery charges over a medical report allegedly used to support the bail application of former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, has denied any wrongdoing, insisting that he did not forge any document or authorise anyone to depose to an affidavit on his behalf.
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Abubakar, a Chief Consultant Clinical and Radiation Oncologist at the National Hospital, Abuja, made the denial in a voluntary statement to the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission. The statement was made in the presence of his lawyer, Rabiu Suleiman of Mahmud SAN and Co.
Although the doctor admitted that he wrote the medical report in question, he said he did not know the man accused of using the report to depose an affidavit in favour of El-Rufai.
“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 Abubakar of knowingly issuing a false medical report to mislead a public officer and support 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, Abubakar allegedly authored the report titled “Medical Report and Expert Opinion for Urgent Medical Intervention,” dated June 10, 2026, knowing its contents to be false, and presented it to a Commissioner for Oaths in Kaduna State before it was filed in court.
Another count accused him of conspiring with one Aliyu Bala, also referred to as Mohammed Bala Aliyu, to fabricate the report to enable the said Bala to depose to a further affidavit backing El-Rufai’s bail application, contrary to Section 79 of the Penal Code.
Abubakar denied knowing the said Bala, stating, “I have no idea who Mohammed Bala Aliyu is and never had any dealing or contact with the same person. Never.”
Giving his account of his professional relationship with El-Rufai, Abubakar said he first met the former governor through his wife, whose first child he had delivered, before El-Rufai later became his patient.
He said El-Rufai was not a registered patient at his private clinic, Belam Cancer Centre, Jabi, Abuja, but was registered at the National Hospital, Abuja, around 2005, where Abubakar said he had worked since the hospital’s inception in September 1999.
The doctor said he consulted El-Rufai at the National Hospital not more than four times between 2017 and 2025, adding that the consultations were not documented because they did not require documentation.
He further stated that in 2025, his contact with the former governor was limited to telephone conversations while El-Rufai was abroad.
Abubakar said he later consulted El-Rufai three times between June and July 2026 while the former governor was in ICPC detention, after he was invited by the family.
According to him, two of the consultations took place at the ICPC office in the presence of the commission’s clinic staff, with his entry documented at the reception, while the third consultation took place at the National Hospital.
Narrating the consultation of July 9, Abubakar said he attended to El-Rufai 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.
He said five clinical staff and El-Rufai’s two wives were present during the consultation, with no other person in the room.
The doctor also explained that photographs taken when he handed a report to El-Rufai’s wives, in the presence of ICPC operatives, were taken in the waiting area and not inside the consultation room.
He said he was inadvertently captured in one of the photographs before returning to the Oncology Department to attend to an admitted patient.
On the procedure for issuing medical reports at the National Hospital, Abubakar said a patient’s request is forwarded to the consultant, who has discretion to write the report. He said once completed, the report is stamped in the office of the Director of Clinical Services before being handed to the patient.
He maintained that it was not his responsibility to determine whether such reports were registered.
When asked about El-Rufai’s histological diagnosis, Abubakar declined to answer, saying the former governor had not authorised him to disclose the information and that doing so would be unethical.
However, court filings reportedly show that the Chief Medical Director of the National Hospital, Raji Mahmud, is expected to testify that Abubakar issued the report in 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, in response to ICPC letters, stated that it did not authorise the report attributed to Abubakar, and that investigations established that the document was false and did not follow due process.
The ICPC has also petitioned the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria over the matter, seeking professional sanctions against Abubakar.
In a letter to the Medical and Dental Practitioners’ Investigation Panel, the ICPC Chairman requested that a formal complaint be lodged against the professor, citing an affidavit dated July 7, 2026, before the High Court of Nasarawa State.
The petition urged the panel to conduct “a thorough and swift investigation” into the allegations. An acknowledgement copy reportedly showed that the MDCN received the complaint on July 8.
El-Rufai is facing multiple corruption-related prosecutions instituted by the ICPC, including an alleged ₦8.68bn 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 cases and has accused the Federal Government and Kaduna State Government of using the prosecutions to keep him in detention.
The ICPC had earlier arrested Abubakar over the alleged false statement linked to the disputed medical report.
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