Monday morning: court grants El-Rufai N100 million bail. Monday afternoon: DSS takes him back. He has been in detention for 91 days.

The charges stem from a television interview El-Rufai gave in February. He said he learned about plans to arrest him from a tapped phone call involving the National Security Adviser. The DSS charged him under the Cybercrimes Act for allegedly intercepting that communication. That is the case. A man charged with knowing something that was said about him.

The bail conditions Justice Abdulmalik imposed read like a checklist designed to remain unmet. The surety must live in Maitama or Asokoro. Must be a federal civil servant at Grade Level 17 or above. Must present the original Certificate of Occupancy for a landed property. Bank manager verification letter. Six months of tax clearance. All international passports deposited with the court.

Grade Level 17 is the highest rank in the federal civil service. There are approximately 500 people in Nigeria who hold that grade. Each one of them is being asked to stake their property, their career, and their passport on behalf of Nasir El-Rufai.

Hours after the ruling, DSS operatives took him back. His family said this contradicted court directives that he remain with the ICPC, not the DSS. His son Bello, a sitting member of the House of Representatives, described it as an assault on the rule of law. The week before, his wife had been turned away at the ICPC gate trying to deliver his dinner. After 6:30pm, they said. His doctor was blocked from visiting.

El-Rufai ran Kaduna for eight years. He understood state power from the inside. He used the tools of the state against people who stood in his way. The critics who were harassed, the media that was pressured, the opposition figures who faced legal exposure that looked very much like what he is experiencing now. That history is real and it belongs in any honest account of who he is.

It also belongs in the same account as this. A court order was issued on Monday. By Monday evening it meant nothing. Not because the evidence changed. Because a man with a vehicle and a directive decided it didn't have to.

Most Nigerians will never have a son in the House of Representatives to issue a statement. Most Nigerians cannot afford the lawyers El-Rufai has. When the state demonstrates that court orders bend for the powerful, what it's also demonstrating is what happens to everyone else.