The Social Democratic Party is still in the euphoria of having Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, the immediate past governor of Kaduna state in its fold, though their gameplay is kept to their chest. The party has spoken of its capacity to turn the political tide as 2027 approaches. Will this ship contain the decampee’s purpose of wrestling power from the ruling party? Assistant Editor Emmanuel Badejo reports.
A lot is happening in the polity, especially in the national political arena. It is barely two years since the incumbent, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), took the reins of governance. And whether he will decide to run to succeed himself or not is yet to be known. Nevertheless several alignments and realignments are going on within the political circle to the benefit of all major political parties.
Three political parties – APC, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the Labour Party (LP) ruled the political atmosphere heralding Tinubu’s presidency. While the APC, being the party at the centre, has received more defectors in the last two years than others.
On Monday, an unpopular Social Democratic Party (SDP), went into frenzy when the immediate past governor of Kaduna state, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, announced his resignation from the ruling party and entry into SDP. El-Rufai’s defection didn’t come to his party and political watchers as a surprise as he had earlier decried the running of the APC and threatened to defect. He had complained about some policies of the party on the pages of newspapers. “APC has left me,” he declared a month ago, hinting about his next move.” However, many pundits have expressed surprise at his choice of party – the SDP, which came fourth in the 2023 presidential election.
Why I left APC, El-Rufai
Like other parties, the APC, is not without its internal issues. One of the persons that had felt dissatisfied with the ruling party is El-Rufai, who had accused his former political family of lacking internal democracy.
In a statement on Monday titled “Onwards to the Future,” El-Rufai said the APC had deviated from the vision of its founding members, making it impossible for him to remain.
The statement reads, “As a founding member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), I have fond memories of working with other compatriots to negotiate the merger of political parties that created the APC. It had been my hope since 2013 that my personal values and that of the APC will align up to the time I choose to retire from politics.
“Developments in the last two years confirm that there is no desire on the part of those who currently control and run the APC to acknowledge, much less address, the unhealthy situation of the party.
“On my part, I have raised concerns in private and, more recently, in public regarding the capricious trajectory of the party. Therefore, at this point in my political journey, I have come to the conclusion that I must seek another political platform for the pursuit of the progressive values I cherish.
“Founders rightly feel attached towards institutions they helped create, but one must be pragmatic enough to admit when a divergence appears unbridgeable. I have diligently served the APC and made my contributions to its viability as a political platform but recognize that the party has since strayed and left me stuck in the vision of its well-meaning founding fathers and mothers.
“As a loyal party man, I worked to help secure the APC’s election victories in 2015, 2019 and 2023. I was one of the many governors elected on the party’s platform in 2015 and 2019 that stood for certain democratic and progressive principles to advance nation-building.
“My eight-year tenure in Kaduna State was devoted to implementing progressive policies to advance human development in education and healthcare, as well as expand infrastructure, promote equality of opportunity, create jobs and attract investments. These records count for little in the current APC that has castrated its organs and treated its membership with contempt in the last two years. I find this no longer acceptable.
“Today, the 10th of March 2025, I have submitted a letter resigning my membership of the APC to my ward in Kaduna, effective immediately. Subsequent to this, I had concluded consultations with my mentors, colleagues and loyalists alike about the future, and have decided to join the Social Democratic Party (SDP), and adopt it as the platform for our future political engagements and activities.
“Without prejudice to this decision, as a member of the SDP, I will focus on engaging with and persuading other opposition leaders and parties to join us and congregate under a unified democratic platform to challenge the APC in all elections and bye-elections between now and 2027 by the Grace of God.”
El-Rufai added: “I therefore call on all our supporters and other persons concerned about our country’s future to join us in the SDP in the journey towards making Nigeria flourish as a beacon of pride for Africans and the Black Race.”
If the tone of his letter is anything to go by, it suggests that the SDP will be used as a vehicle to galvanise other politicians to forge a common opposition against the APC.
Rise to stardom
El-Rufai, a first class graduate of quantity surveying from the Ahmadu Bello University has been in the corridor of power for almost 30 years. He first tasted power when former military Head of State, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar appointed him as an economic advisor in 1998.
Through the influence of the then vice president, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, President Olusegun Obasanjo later appointed El-Rufai as the inaugural Director, Bureau of Public Enterprises and Secretary of the National Council of Privatisation where he spearheaded the privatisation of government owned corporations under the supervision of Atiku.
In July 2003, when he was appointed the FCT Minister, he insisted on the implementation of the original masterplan. With the establishment of the Abuja Geographic Information System, the federal capital became the first municipality in Nigeria with a computerised land register and information system.
After El-Rufai’s appointment was approved by the Senate, he alleged that former Deputy Senate President Ibrahim Mantu and Senator Jonathan Zwingina asked for a $414,000 bribe before his nomination as a minister was approved. Both senators denied the accusation.
El-Rufai had a running battle with the Senate over allegations of exorbitant salaries paid to his staff without approval.
As FCT Minister, El-Rufai demolished 945 buildings and settlements in a bid to sanitise the territory. The residence of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) National Chairman, Senator Ahmadu Ali, in Asokoro, built over a water trunk line, was not spared.
At the twilight of the administration, El-Rufai presided over a ministerial/administrative panel which indicted his former boss, Atiku. This made some loyalists of Atiku to accuse him of treasury and subversion of his benefactors. Obviously, he had fallen out with his principal and aligned with Obasanjo.
His political journey
El-Rufai joining the SDP is the fourth political platform that he would have been associated with publicly since the return to civilian rule in 1999.
His first port of call was the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) when President Olusegun Obasanjo emerged as President, after the June 12 debacle that lasted for six years with grave implications for national unity, progress and stability.
In 2011, he became a member of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) after his return from exile.
In 2013/14, he aligned with the APC, served as governor of Kaduna state 2015 to 2023. He was nominated as a minister, but it was said that he failed security screening. For that reason, his name was dropped. Now, he has ported as they say in common parlance to the SDP.
Mixed reactions
Adewole Adebayo, the 2023 presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), has described the new addition to the party, Nasir El-Rufai, as an asset with a proven track record of exemplary public service.
Adebayo extolled the intellectual sagacity of El-Rufai, a two-term ex-governor of Kaduna State, but said the former minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) has some weaknesses to work on.
“The issue is that I see him as an asset, as a hard-working person and he has a verifiable and measurable track record of public performance,” the SDP chieftain said on national television a few hours after he made his defection plan known.
“What I believe is that he has his weaknesses which he needs to work on but I am not his mentor or therapist.
“What I know is that Nigerians have a bird’s eye view of El-Rufai, they will consider some of the comments that he’s made and some other aspects. Overall, Nigerians will say: ‘Here is a very good public servant.”
Adebayo said El-Rufai was welcomed into the SDP. He said, “Nigeria is diverse and you will find patriots on all sides. It doesn’t mean that if you narrow the discussion to particular areas, I will agree with Nasir El-Rufai on many of them but I agree with the fact that he is a hard-working person and a highly intelligent person.”
Adebayo said it took some engagements to get El-Rufai to dump the APC and join the SDP. He said the SDP won’t accept some of the ideas that the former Kaduna governor has been used to over the years.
He said, “The idea of the SDP is that if you are going to be in charge of Nigeria, you need to persuade people; El-Rufai did not run or crash into our party; we had discussions with him, we had ideological interactions, and even now, there are works in progress – some of his ideas that he is used to over the years, the SDP will not accept, and we are working on that.
“But my welcome note to him is to say: this is the place you can come to; not that he is fit for every job in the SDP, or every position in the SDP but with time, because he has intellectual curiosity, he has the ability to test ideas and he knows that we are very strong when it comes to social services and social intervention; we don’t believe that you have to privatise everything – we believe that some should be left to the government.
“Don’t be surprised that you’ll hear in two weeks’ time, or in two months’ time, that Adebayo and El-Rufai disagree vehemently on an issue in SDP.
Reacting to El-Rufai’s defection, Daniel Bwala, a spokesperson for the Bola Tinubu administration, dismissed the move as a desperate attempt to unseat the incumbent.
In a statement on X, Bwala questioned El-Rufai’s political ideology, saying, “Senior, @elrufai . I read the news today that you resigned from APC to join SDP. Well, I have nothing against you because you exercised your constitutional right.
“However, the motive is what we would interrogate in the coming days and reminds Nigerians that you are not a phenomenon that emerged like a clap of thunder out of a blue sky.
“We would intellectually remind you that associating with sore losers to unseat the incumbent is not an ideology, neither is it progressivism; it is simply an inordinate ambition that is destined to fail.”
A former APC National Vice-Chairman (North West) of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Salihu Lukman, has described former Kaduna State Governor Nasir el-Rufai’s defection to the Social Democratic Party (SDP) as too hasty.
Mr Lukman, a political ally of El-Rufai and former National Working Committee (NWC) member of APC, expressed concern that the former governor’s defection could disrupt ongoing negotiations for a broader political coalition ahead of the 2027 general elections.
Although he stated that El-Rufai’s defection had been anticipated, he, however, said that he should have exercised more patience to allow coalition talks to be finalised.
While acknowledging El-Rufai’s right to political association, the former APC chieftain warned that the timing of his defection might have unintended consequences for opposition realignments.
Senator Shehu Sani has downplayed El-Rufai’s defection, saying the move won’t impact the ruling party’s fortune in the coming elections billed for 2027.
Sani, who is also from Kaduna like El-Rufai, believes the former Minister of the FCT holds no political relevance.
“Well, first of all, for those of us from Kaduna state, it [his defection] is a good riddance because he stands as a liability to the party in the state,” the former Kaduna Central senator said recently on a national television citing the APC’s losses under El-Rufai.
“I can back this with facts. In 2015, APC had two senators. By 2023, all the senatorial zones were taken over by PDP. Out of the 14 House of Representatives seats in Kaduna State, by the time he left [office as governor], almost nine of the seats were won by PDP, two by the Labour Party, and then three by APC. With him as a governor, the APC also lost the presidential election in Kaduna state.”
Likely politicians to align…
Sources indicate that former Kaduna governor is also working to reconcile Atiku with Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, the leader of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), in an attempt to merge opposition forces into a formidable alliance. The coalition is expected to attract former governors and ex-ministers eager to challenge the APC’s dominance.
According to insiders, some aggrieved chieftains of the APC like Abubakar Malami, former attorney general of the federation (AGF), and Abdullahi Adamu, former national chairman of the APC, among other leaders of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), which merged into the APC in 2015, may leave the APC in the coming months.
Similarly, pundits say El-Rufai’s defection to the SDP may just be part of ongoing plan to form a broad alliance of opposition politicians to challenge the incumbent President Bola Tinubu in 2027.
Time will tell if the party will spring surprises or not.
