Activist turned politician, Shehu Sani has not been in good terms with former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Nasir El-Rufai.
Sani is regarded by many as a controversial figure due to his style of advocacy. He has carved a niche for himself as a Marxist. According to him, any policy that would bring hardship upon the people would be challenged by him.
El-Rufai on the other hand, is a no-nonsense administrator who has been accused by many of not implementing the laws in his state with a human face. Many feel that he throws leniency to the wind while carrying out his duties as the governor. Sani has always maintained that implementation of laws should have a human face.
These two political gladiators with opposite ideas to the extreme happen to be from the same state, Kaduna and are also members of the same political party, the All Progressives Congress, APC.
According to the findings by The Next Edition, the crisis between the two predates their emergence as governor and senator respectively.
As a Minister of the FCT, one thing was common with him: that was the demolition of illegal structures, a move which did not go down well with many, including Sani who sees himself as a man of the people. The former Minister was accused of being too harsh in carrying out his duties in the Federal Capital Territory.
As a result in their ideological difference, Sani did not support El-Rufai to emerge as candidate of the APC in 2015. El-Rufai also had his preferred candidate for the position Sani occupies today. His choice was the then incumbent, Senator Sani Saleh. While Sani emerged as APC candidate for Central senatorial district, El-Rufai emerged as the APC governorship candidate.
Both men had to sheath their swords temporarily for the sake of the party in order to win the general elections. They joined forces and made sure APC won the governorship and presidential elections. For the Upper chamber of the National Assembly, Kaduna Central and North went to the APC, except that of Kaduna South, which was won by the PDP.
Since that historical feat in 2015, both politicians have been at loggerheads. Not long after El-Rufai assumed office in 2015, he abolished Ramadan and Sallah gifts, as well as Christmas largesse distributed to the masses and organizations in the state.
Sani hurriedly went to the public to condemn the cancellation of the gifts for both Christian and Muslim festivals. He saw it as anti-people and revived it within his constituency. As a result, the Senator was nicknamed, ‘Mai Rakumi’ at the event where he distributed rams, cows and camels to his constituents.
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Next was the recovery exercise, where the state government was taking lands from those who built structures on them. Sani thought that was too harsh. He felt that the owners of those buildings were not given ample time.
The senator accused Governor El-Rufai of running the state in such a way that, “he will end up ruining all of us, which I will not be part of. He has taken some steps which have only attracted anger from the general public against him.
“He is a governor, I am also a senator. He is not bigger than me, neither am I bigger than him. So, as far as I am concerned, whether El-Rufai is a governor or whatever, anything he does that does not tally with what is supposed to be done, I will certainly tell him,” he added.
Explaining further, he added: “He (El-Rufai) is a technocrat, while I am an activist and a revolutionary. So, my power base is the common people, the masses who constitute my strength. They are the people I have lived with and fought for over the years. He has to take consideration of the fact that he met people that were impoverished, that were muscled, harassed and demoralized by the government of the PDP. So, first of all, they don’t need harsh polices that will further impoverish and alienate them. We need to carry them along, taking cognizance of the situation which we find them in. I fundamentally differ with him on that issue.
Last year, about 22,000 teachers were sacked for allegedly failing a competence test. That was another move the activist saw as extreme. He took to his twitter page to criticize it. Subsequently, there was a protest led by the Labour union for the governor to reinstate the sacked teachers or provide an alternative for them.
Unmoved by the protests, Governor El-Rufai alongside six governors from the North, visited President Muhammadu Buhari to endorse him to run for a second term. That was barely 24 hours after the mass burial of 73 people killed by suspected Fulani herdsmen in Benue State.
El-Rufai who is the spokesman of the so-called ‘G7 governors’ did not bother about people’s perception of his visit to the presidency at that particular period. He was quoted as saying “we have no apologies for endorsing Buhari.”
The senator in his usual fashion condemned the action of the seven governors from his party, the APC, for asking President Buhari to vie for a second term in 2019 despite the killings going on in several parts of the country. “Seven governors in the Villa are asking President Buhari to run at this material time when all hands should be on deck to advice or support him to end the mindless bloodletting and carnage in the country is most unfortunate. Human reasoning and human conscience where art thou?” he said.
A few days ago, the unthinkable happened. In the early hours of Wednesday morning the new APC factional secretariat was demolished. The building was said to belong to Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi, representing Kaduna North. The demolition received condemnation from people all over the country including Sen. Sani.
The Next Edition learnt from a reliable source that “the group opened the secretariat at 11B Sambo close in the state capital on February 15, due to irreconcilable difference with the main party leadership,” which is controlled by Gov. El-Rufai.
In his reaction to the demolition, Sani wondered why Governor El-Rufai, “a democratically elected governor would demolish a building without notice.” He said, “What is happening in Kaduna is simply tyranny. We don’t have an elected governor we have a military administrator, one who thinks that everything should go his own way.
“He engineered the party to suspend me. That is about a year and half ago. When El-Rufai’s suspension came, he became very angry moving about with bulldozers to bring down buildings,” Sani said.
Explaining the reasons behind the demolition, the Director-General of the State Urban Planning and Development Agency, KAPSUDA, Ibrahim Husseini, said the move was facilitated with assistance from sister agencies aimed at restoring “order” across the state. The building was removed for “flagrant violations of land use and non-payment of ground rent since 2010,” according to him.
In what appears to be getting messier, the Kaduna State governor has filed a suit at the State High Court seeking two billion Naira damages against Sen. Sani for making derogatory statements against the governor.
He accused the lawmaker of calling him an embarrassment to President Muhammadu Buhari among others.
Worried by the crisis, the APC National Working Committee met on Wednesday and set up a three-man committee to investigate the disagreement that led to the emergence of a faction among other issues in the state.
With the election year fast approaching, the earlier their dispute is resolved, the better it would be for the APC.
