Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State and Senator Shehu Sani (Kaduna Central District) are locked in a supremacy tussle. The fight is over who controls the soul of the party, ahead of the 2019 general elections. Assistant Editor LEKE SALAUDEEN examines the issues that must be addressed for peace to prevail in the troubled All Progressives Congress (APC) chapter.
The rivalry between Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State and Senator Shehu Sani (Kaduna Central) has polarised the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state. Analysts believe the face-off between the two APC chieftains is a fall out of the crisis engendered by the 2015 governorship primary. Both El-Rufai and Sani had governorship ambitions, but Sani was pressurised to step down for the incumbent governor against his will. Since El-Rufai took over the reins of power, Sani has been critical of his administration, despite the fact that both of them belong to the same party. Pundits say the crisis has to do with ego.
Analysts say the current crisis is being fuelled by the winners take-it all policy of Governor El-Rufai. For instance, the governor was alleged to have considered only members of his group for political appointments. They say even party offices that became vacant as a result of political appointments were arbitrarily filled by the governor without conducting election as required by the APC Constitution. Other stakeholders sidelined are also crying for justice for peace to reign.
Sani confirmed the genesis of the crisis. He said: “I never intended to contest for the Senate; I wanted to contest for the governorship and I opened offices in Zaria, Kaduna and Kafanchan, and later there was pressure on me that I should step down. Politicians came to meet me that I should step down and allow El-Rufai to contest, because they said he was the favourite of the president.
“I pulled back and said I wanted to contest for the Senate, but there was a sitting senator, General Saleh and I had to evict him during the primary election. I told them in black and white that I didn’t have money to give any delegate, and if they feel okay with my principles, then let them vote for me, but if my principles are not right for them, let them go and vote for the same person that was occupying the seat. They voted for me and I removed an incumbent senator. So, I didn’t contest against a vacuum.”
Sani, a social crusader before entering politics, explained that when he got the Senate ticket, there were two major candidates in the Kaduna governorship race, El-Rufai and Isa Ashiru. According to Sani, the two of them had senatorial aspirants that contested the primary against me. He added: “El-Rufai supported General Saleh, while Ashiru was behind Sani Suleiman.
“I did not have the backing of any of the governorship candidates, but I thrashed the candidates of both El-Rufai and Ashiru. The El-Rufai that won the governorship ticket in Kaduna won it with 1,000 votes and I won one senatorial zone with 920 votes. If I had contested the governorship primary, there was no way I wouldn’t have emerged; it’s not possible. So, I sacrificed that and I contested the Senate and I won.”
But, a chieftain of the APC in the state who spoke on condition of anonymity dismissed Sani’s claims of being pressurised to step down for El-Rufai. He said President Muhammadu Buhari did not influence the governorship primary in any way. If El-Rufai is close to Buhari, you can’t fault him for that. Sani too is closer to some political big wigs. What I am saying is that Buhari didn’t win the ticket for him. I think the senator should desist from dragging President Buhari into his personal problem with El-Rufai.
He added: “If Sani was sure of winning the primary, why did he withdraw and settle for the Senate seat? I think the senator should forget about his bitterness over the 2015 governorship ticket and join hands with the governor in his efforts to develop the state. Sani is carrying his bitterness too far. His open criticism of El-Rufai’s government has been extended to the APC-controlled Federal Government. He plays the role of the opposition leader in the Senate. You can disagree within the party on any issue, but not outside; that is the hallmark of collective responsibility in democracy. Sani’s utterances have portrayed the APC as a party without discipline. He is not attacking Buhari and El-Rufai, but the APC; the platform on which he was elected to the Senate.”
But, Sani insisted he didn’t withdraw from the governorship race for fear of defeat. He said: “El-Rufai defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP. He came to the APC with their destructive tendencies. His ideas are in conflict with our party’s manifesto. He has also crippled the APC in Kaduna. Those who follow him are not people of honour.
“He can’t intimidate me, because I was elected by the masses of this state, but he gave money to scale through the party primary. He waited for President Buhari to raise his hand for people of Kaduna State. That can’t happen again. The days of President Buhari’s grace is gone. Kaduna voters will vote with their eyes wide open, according to individual performance.
“Whoever thinks he can silence me does not know my history. I have fought for democracy for over 30 years. El-Rufai has no capacity to confront me. And his men cannot suspend me from the party. How can a tenant sack his landlord?”
The crisis reached a crescendo when Sani was suspended from the APC in January 2016 by his Tudun Wada ward constituency. The ward executive said it took the action to suspend the senator, because he had made statements that allegedly violate the rules of engagement of the party, factionalised the party, and allegedly engaged in anti-party activities by criticising openly the policies of Governor El-Rufai. It noted that “hardly a week passes that Sani’s group would not be on air criticising and challenging the enduring legacies of Malam El-Rufai; that his statement on national issues is not in conformity with that of the Federal and Kaduna State governments.”
The suspension had since expired on Friday, December 2, 2016. But, to the consternation of Sani’s supporters, he was again slammed an indefinite suspension. Curiously, on that day, some youths allegedly sponsored by El-Rufai’s Special Adviser on Political Matters, Malam Uba Sani, attacked Sani’s family house in Tudun Wada. The following day, Sani’s constituency office was again attacked by those suspected to be loyalists of the governor.
Reacting to the development, Sani said: “What is happening today in Kaduna is shameful and sad. It is unfortunate that Kaduna Central is the most dangerous place to live today in Nigeria, because the governor has abandoned his responsibilities and decided to channel all his energy to fighting Senator Shehu Sani.”
Defending the government, Uba Sani said: “It has become imperative to set the records straight. Everyone has known that it is Shehu Sani that has spent 18 months attacking the governor personally and opposing every government policy. The state government has ignored his tantrums, while the party has acted to uphold discipline.
“Shehu Sani should keep the government out of his woes. We are beneficiaries of democracy and we champion an open society. We respect democratic values and will never resort to unconstitutional means of settling differences. He should be careful not to make wild and unsubstantiated claims.” The Special Adviser advised the senator to stop his political tantrum and grow up from being childish, adding Sani was only roaring because of his suspension from the party.
Observers said the suspension of Sani had been predicted weeks before the hammer finally fell on him. What puzzled them, however, was why the senator ignored the danger signals ahead and decided to continue his criticisms of policies and actions of government.
According to one analyst, the senator’s posture was due to the fact that some powerful forces within the party are behind him and that any attempt to further stretch the mark of humiliation against him would elicit reactions from that quarter. He said even though the forces backing the senator cannot be identified, it is clear the forces against the senator are not willing to engage him in a fight all alone and had to apply tact in dealing with the issue, so as to gain the sympathy of the party leaders at the national level.
He recalled that when Sani began his criticism of the El-Rufai administration almost, immediately after it was inaugurated, the governor and his team were quick to react. But, they later changed tactic and began to ignore whatever was coming from the senator. A source close to government said the action was deliberate, in order not to glorify Sani; it was decided that the governor should rather concentrate on governance as a way of shaming his critics.
At a point, the APC national secretariat intervened when it quashed the earlier suspension slammed on Sani. A high-powered delegation led by the party’s Northwest Vice Chairman, Alhaji Inuwa Abdulkadir, sued for peace between the feuding parties.
In spite of this move, some APC stalwarts are not impressed with the role of the national secretariat. One of them, Alhaji Isa Ibrahim, put the blame squarely on the doorsteps of the party’s National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun. He said: “When you cannot manage a party at the national level, how can you resolve crisis at the state level. I don’t know of any other position apart from that of the National Publicity Secretary that became vacant since the APC assumed office that has been filled. The situation is similar here in Kaduna. The party chairman is the Deputy Governor. It is not normal.
Ibrahim said a lot of people are not happy with the governor, because of his failure to carry everybody along in the governance of the state. He said: “The crisis in Kaduna APC is larger than what you can see; it goes beyond El-Rufai and Sani. The truth is that a lot of people are not happy with the governor. If the state chapter of the party could go ahead with a suspension purportedly quashed by the National Secretariat some months ago, it is a clear sign that the headquarters is not in control.”
Expressing a similar view, an APC chieftain in Kaduna State, Alhaji Suleiman Saleh, blamed the leadership of the party in the state for its failure to comply with the party’s constitution. According to him, the party’s constitution makes it clear that when a position becomes vacant, there must be an election to fill it.
Saleh also faulted the dual positions of the state chairman and the deputy governorship being held by the same person. His words: “The State Chairman of the APC is the Deputy Governor. The secretary of the party was appointed a commissioner and is now the chief of staff to the governor. You can see that the flagrant disobedience of the party’s constitution became a challenge right from the onset. If the vacant positions were legitimately filled, we won’t find ourselves in this problem.
“The way forward for us in Kaduna APC is reconciliation. What is happening now is not a war, but a campaign of violence. It has been difficult to bring the two leaders together for reconciliation, because the leadership of the party is being controlled by the governor. But, the stakeholders have drawn the attention of the party leadership to the inherent danger it portends towards 2019. It is time to put our house in order. Those who can call the governor and the senator to order should do it now.”
Analysts believe the leadership of the APC at the national level must step in immediately to save the party from a major catastrophe in 2019. They also advised the two principal actors in the crisis — El-Rufai and Sani — to shed the toga of arrogance and impunity by engaging in the rule of the game, as outlined in the APC Constitution, for peace to reign in the party.
