The DSS finished making its case against Nasir El-Rufai back in June. On Tuesday, the court finally heard both sides argue over whether that case was ever enough. The ruling is still a month away.

Former Kaduna governor Nasir El-Rufai has been fighting a five count charge since April, when he was arraigned before Justice Joyce Abdulmalik of the Federal High Court in Abuja. The charge accuses him of unlawfully intercepting a phone conversation involving National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu. It traces back to something El-Rufai said himself, in February, during a live interview on Arise Television. He claimed he knew about plans for his own arrest because someone had listened in on Ribadu's calls.

The DSS actually closed its case back in June, after calling two witnesses and playing the court a recording of the original television interview. El-Rufai's lawyer, Paul Erokoro, responded then by telling the court the defence would file a no case submission. He argued the DSS never built a prima facie case in the first place.

On Tuesday, three months later, the court finally heard both sides argue that submission out. Erokoro told the judge the prosecution had failed to establish a case requiring his client to enter a defence. DSS counsel Oluwole Aladedoye pushed back. He argued the defence had never properly addressed a piece of evidence the prosecution calls Exhibit B, said to contain an admission from El-Rufai about the interception. Justice Abdulmalik reserved her ruling for October 26.

El-Rufai remains on ₦100 million bail through all of this, the same bail he has held since his arraignment, after the court separately rejected a request to loosen its conditions. Those conditions require sureties who are level 17 civil servants owning property in Maitama or Asokoro, two of Abuja's most expensive districts. They also require verification letters from the Kaduna State Traditional Council. Erokoro had called the terms unrealistic. The court disagreed and left them as they were.

Set the politics of the underlying claim aside for a moment, because TNL cannot verify whether Ribadu's phone was actually tapped, and neither has any court. What is verifiable is the shape of the process itself. A former governor was arraigned in April. The prosecution finished presenting its evidence in June. Seven months after his arrest, the country still does not know whether a judge thinks that evidence was ever enough to answer. The answer to that narrower question will not arrive before late October.

Nigeria's institutions can move fast when they choose to. A central bank can announce a decisive number and stand behind it the same day. A court process, once it starts, does not run on that clock. Seven months after an arrest, the country is still waiting on a single procedural question, let alone a verdict.