- Sani said El-Rufai refused multiple reconciliation efforts by APC leaders, worsening internal party crises.
- He described APC’s internal conflicts as natural in a democracy and expected them to continue.
Shehu Sani, a former senator from Kaduna, has explained why he decided to rejoin the governing All Progressives Congress (APC).
In October 2018, Sani, who was Kaduna Central’s senator, left the APC following disputes over the party’s primaries, despite being confirmed by its national working committee (NWC).
However, Nasir el-Rufai, the former Kaduna governor, opposed this due to his rivalry with Sani, which resulted in his ally, now the current governor, securing the 2019 APC senatorial nomination.
The former senator switched to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), where he won the party’s ticket but was defeated in the 2019 election by the Kaduna governor.
On February 16, 2025, Sani, along with some PDP and New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) members, officially joined the ruling APC in Kaduna.
During an interview on Hard Copy, a programme on Channels Television, Sani stated that Uba Sani, Kaduna’s governor, played a role in reconciling differences that led to their APC return.
“A circumstance led to our mass exit from the APC sometime in 2018 and that circumstance has changed and then we rejoined the APC in Kaduna State,” Sani said.
“First of all, I was a founding member of APC particularly in Kaduna State, we established structures and we did the campaigns and we won the 2015 elections both at the senatorial and the governorship levels and somewhere along the way we pathed ways with the governor el-Rufai in the state.
“We pathed way over differences that are both political, personal and also issues that affect the state and for that reason we had to evict ourselves out of the party and then now that we have a new governor who reached out to us.
“A governor who has been making consultations, building bridges across the state and then we also met and agreed that we should return back to the party that we founded in Kaduna State.”
Discussing internal tensions within the APC, Sani recalled that the party was formed through a merger of different political groups, making conflicts unavoidable.
He further stated that internal disagreements are a normal aspect of democracy and will likely continue in the coming years.
The former senator also accused El-Rufai of causing the APC’s loss in the 2023 presidential election in Kaduna State.
During the election, Atiku Abubakar of the PDP secured 554,360 votes, defeating Bola Tinubu, the APC candidate, who polled 399,293 votes, while Peter Obi of Labour Party got 294,494 votes.
Sani criticised the former governor for failing to unify the different factions within the APC in the state before the election.
“From my understanding, the former governor of Kaduna State is disgruntled and pained—it’s part of the crisis of entitlement and expectations,” he said.
“But as I posted on my X page, Nasiru was governor for eight years and couldn’t deliver Kaduna to Tinubu. The results are there—Atiku got 554,260 votes, Tinubu 399,293, and Peter Obi, who was denied Arewa House under Nasiru, polled over 200,000.
“If Nasiru claims he delivered for Tinubu, the figures say otherwise. For the first time, under him, APC lost all three senatorial seats to PDP. Out of 14 House of Representatives seats, PDP won nine, Labour two, and APC only three.
“He also claims to have brought Uba Sani to office, but let’s check the numbers—PDP’s Isa Ashiru got 719K votes, Uba Sani 730K, just an 11K difference. Kaduna didn’t vote for Uba because of Nasiru; in fact, Uba lost votes because of him.
“This was a man campaigning for Uba on one hand while publicly ridiculing him on the other. Videos are there where he warned Kaduna people against voting for Uba.
“Does he believe in reconciliation? When the APC crisis in Kaduna lasted seven years, the party sent Masari, Segun Oni, Inua Abdulquadri, and Oyegun to mediate—he refused all.
“His refusal to reconcile with APC forces in Kaduna led to major losses. If he truly believes in reconciliation, why didn’t he practise it in his own state?”
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