El-rufai: The Finger That Fed Uba Sani »

By Yusuf Danjuma Yunus

El-rufai, approaching the end of his tenure as the governor of Kaduna State in 2022, started his strategic moves making sure Uba Sani, the then lawmaker at the red chamber, is duly elected as his successor amidst the ‘political gang-up’ in the state at the moment.

Ashiru Gudan, the candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), was the favorite of the ‘elderstatemen’ of Kaduna who ganged up and vowed never to allow El-rufai succeed. The election, despite being fought fiercely, was in favour of El-rufai and his supposed protege, Uba Sani.

What is expected of any Nigerian successor of a governorship seat is that they take their predecessors as demigods who dictate what should and shouldn’t happen in the state. Requesting for a quota of the state’s allocation to be domiciled into their accounts on a monthly basis or, as the case maybe–just as we’re witnessing in some of the states in the country. Usually, there would be a rumble between a protege and his master if there exist a breach of trust which, mostly, comes from the former. You may cite Rivers State as an illustration of that.

Now, the twist of the whole script is that, no time has Uba Sani ever mentioned or express, in any form, that El-rufai is guilty of the aforementioned scenarios of how some predecessors relate with their successors. It has always been how he, El-rufai, mismanaged funds and illegally received loans which, in some quarters, were facilitated by Uba Sani. So I wonder: if El-rufai never disturbed him of how to govern the state nor request for a quota of the state’s allocation into his account, what then could be the problem?

Seldom we hear cases of predecessors and their successors that are of the same party and ideology rumbling; except there exist a show of demigod from the predecessors towards their successors. But, in the case of El-rufai and Uba Sani, just as I have stated earlier, nothing of such is repertible.

However, the tussle between the two has been given another narrative which seems convincing to me. That the denial of a ministerial slot to El-rufai–which he was begged to accept in the first place –and thereafter put to public ridicule by the cabal in the presidency, may result to a strategic backlash from him which they don’t want it to happen as it has been perceived to be detrimental to their success in the 2027 presidential election.

A scrutiny of the whole scenario, right from the outset of the Uba Sani administration, reveals that the cabal in the presidency maybe manipulating him to witch-hunt El-rufai in order to dent his image and consequently hinder him from revolting against them coming 2027. Just as the West has a Jagaban, the North has, too, and it’s El-rufai. He is capable of orchestrating a resounding backlash from the core northern parts of the country and they might not survive it.

The drama is becoming interesting considering the call by the state House of Assembly of Kaduna to probe the administration of El-rufai from the year 2015-2023 that he served as the governor of the state. Uba Sani is bitting the finger that fed him.

Yusuf Danjuma Yunus is a public affairs Analyst, a Columnist at InsidestoryNG and a 300Lv student of Ahmadu Bello University Zaria. He can be contacted via: theonlygrandeur@gmail.com