A strong order has gone out from the Federal Government to all missions abroad to deny consular services to the former minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nasir El-Rufai, and the former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Nuhu Ribadu.

The order was conveyed in a memo dated September 17, and sent to all the missions from the office of the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Joe Keshi.

The memo said: "Headquarters' attention has been drawn to the continuous and unyielding campaign of calumny being orchestrated by former FCT minister, Mallam Nasir Elrufai and former EFCC chairman Mallam Nuhu Ribadu against the federal government abroad in particular, the former FCT minister was reported to have approached you for re-issuance of his standard passport having exhausted the visa pages of his current passport booklet. Consequently you are hereby directed not to reissue the former FCT minister with a new passport above is for information and compliance by all."

Click here to read the complete memo.

Knowledgeable sources in Abuja told NEXT that the Keshi memo was based on security reports from the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), which alerted the ministry of the opposition politics of Mr. El-Rufai and Mr. Ribadu and directed that: "A decision has been reached which has been taken at the highest level that all Nigerian missions are to henceforth deny the duo consular assistance of any form."

The security report referred to Mr. El-Rufai's application for passport renewal, but warned that "doing so will further aid and abet his foreign travels and junketing, during which he has taken every opportunity to put Nigeria on the spot, while portraying a sanctimonious view of himself and his ilk".

Mr.Ribadu, who is undergoing a fellowship at the Oxford University in the United Kingdom expressed shock at the development saying he sees no basis for such an action.

Speaking to NEXT in a telephone interview from the United States of America where he is currently on a speaking tour, he said: "I hope this is not true, but if it is I find it quite amazing. It is sad and tragic that this is coming from our country and for me I will never do anything negative against the interest of the country."

Mr. El-Rufai, currently exiled in Dubai told NEXT in a phone interview that the evidence of such directive represents a gross violation of the constitution, and of the fundamental human rights of citizens in the country.

"It means, at the moment, I do not have a state, a country, since I don't have a passport," he said, adding that, "I hope that it is very clear to every Nigerian of the type of government that we have."

Security officers detained family members of the former FCT minister at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, in Lagos, September 28, as they returned from Dubia after Eid El-Fitr holidays.

He said, at the time, that his lawyers were already filing a petition against the government on the matter of the denial to renew my passport because he interpreted the governments move as cancelling his nationality.

A legal expert, Jiti Ogunye, reviewing the issue, supported the opinion of Mr. El-Rufai, describing the order as "illegal and unconstitutional [and that] it is against the tenets of the rule of law, which is this government's most treasured cliché', followed by the so-called seven point agenda".

Mr. Ogunye said the order brought back dark memories of Nigeria's "military era, when pro-democracy and human rights activists were usually prevented from travelling overseas, and when their passports were usually seized".

He said the actual act of seizing the passport and giving instructions to deny them passport rights amounts to the same thing.

"When you give an instruction that the right to renewal of a passport, which rests on the right to hold a passport, should be breached, it is as bad, in the eye of the law, as an outright seizure or confiscation," he said.

Citing the 1994 case of Agbakoba. vs. Director of SSS, Mr. Ogunye argued that the Court of Appeal made it very clear that the right to freedom of movement enshrined in the Constitution, and Article 12 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples rights, which is in force in Nigeria, as well as Article 13[2] of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, impose an obligation on the government not to refuse entry to, or exit from, Nigeria for a citizen.