I made a decision on the train of weighing Malam Nasir El Rufai, immediate-past governor of Kaduna state, and his successor, incumbent Governor Uba Sani, with a purpose to clear the various misconceptions, obfuscations and the deliberate and mischievous makes an attempt by some folks to color the incorrect photos earlier than the unsuspecting public.
The disputes or debates acquired intensified for the reason that exit of El-Rufai from workplace and the emergence of Uba Sani on the Sir Kashim Ibrahim Home, Kaduna in Could 2023. Lots of people have been made to consider that El-Rufai has all alongside been the drive behind the political progress of Senator Uba Sani, from his going to the Senate to his election as governor. To those that know, nothing might be farther from the reality.
Earlier than delving additional, I want to make the purpose that originally, Senator Uba Sani was not the selection of El-Rufai as his successor. To these within the know of the interior home political intrigues that was taking part in out, Uba Sani was reluctantly supported by El-Rufai when it turned apparent that he was surest guess to win the election for the APC.
El-Rufai, in his personal phrases, got here into the general public area as an “unintended public servant”, along with his appointment because the Director Basic of the Bureau for Public Enterprises, BPE. That is not like Governor Uba Sani who, from the very early begin of his grownup life, consciously selected the trail of selflessness and altruism within the service and development of humanity.
Approach again to his days on the Kaduna Polytechnic, the budding Uba Sani engaged in progressive scholar union and radical left political activism from the place he acquired the epithet: comrade. By the way, his path crossed with a political soulmate and a fellow scholar, Senator Shehu Sani. The friendship and camaraderie between the 2 have performed out at a number of nationwide and regional political fora.
The contributions and observe information of Uba Sani to nationwide political struggles for democracy and justice, towards navy dictatorship, autocracy and repressive insurance policies are loud testimonies of his extraordinary braveness, imaginative and prescient and unbridled patriotism. His political Odyssey can be the narratives of the adventures of an incisively clever, calculating and selfless crew participant.
Uba Sani, for instance, stood out as one of many few youths of northern extraction, who dared to determine and actively partook within the then harmful however heroic struggles of difficult the brutal navy dictatorship of the late Basic Sani Abacha. On this regard, he was within the trenches with the late phenomenal Chief Gani Fawehinmi.
At a time it was very harmful to take action, Uba Sani dared to hitch the Nationwide Democratic Coalition, NADECO, the umbrella physique of all of the political actions and actions with the dual goals of actualisation of the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential election and, ousting the navy from the political scene. By that, he was providentially onboard the ship captained by now, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
He was additionally a basis member of the Joint Motion Committee of Nigeria, JACON, the place he labored alongside the political icon, the late Alhaji Abdulkadir Balarabe Musa, and the few have been brave sufficient to take the bull by the horn.
In recognition of Uba Sani’s bravery, his single-minded dedication to the nationwide course and management qualities, even at that tender age, he was elected because the deputy chairman to Fawehinmi within the Nationwide Conscience Get together, NCP. The NCP was fashioned in 1994, first, “to defy the navy”, and later in 2003, as a political celebration that contested the 2003 presidential election.
The place and who was El Rufai throughout these historic moments of the nation? The place was the person who’s at the moment strutting round in quite unfitting and borrowed garbs of a political mentor and godfather? Actually, the reply is: El-Rufai was nonetheless wallowing within the political wilderness.
El-Rufai got here to political limelight when the then Vice President Atiku Abubakar facilitated his appointment because the BPE DG. The political baptism of El-Rufai was additional emblazoned along with his appointment because the FCT minister by President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2003. President Muhammadu Buhari accomplished the method by influencing El-Rufai’s securing the APC ticket and successful the 2015 Kaduna governorship election.
The picture of El-Rufai as a political colossus is bloated, outlandish and bogus when placed on the political scale. His observe information in public service clearly doesn’t render him as deserving of the lofty picture of a political godfather. For one who regales within the buzz and razzmatazz of the sunshine facet, the engaging picture of a political grasp strategist was very applicable, even when it was false.
Seeing himself as “self-made”, a political maverick, El-Rufai isn’t one which acknowledges, talkless of reciprocating the roles performed by people in his elevation via the political ladder. Quite, he has a penchant of speaking down and disparaging individuals who, decency and good conscience, demand that he ought to rever. Eminent personalities, who, despite the essential roles they performed in his political trajectory, which were assaulted and impugned at numerous occasions by Nasir El Rufai embody, Obasanjo who appointed him FCT minister and who doted on him as a father would dote on a beloved son.
Despite the fact that it’s public data that Atiku Abubakar performed a pivotal position in his very first main appointment within the public service, El-Rufai would later descend on the previous vice chairman with demeaning and unprintable invectives on a number of events. Not even the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, in his grave, was spared the venomous tongue of the erstwhile governor of Kaduna state.
The Olympian peak of El-Rufai’s political impunity, nay, conceitedness was maybe when he vociferously declared that: “There are not any elders within the North”! By this, El Rufai was merely denigrating the area’s dwelling legends – Generals Yakubu Gowon, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, Abdulsalami Abubakar, TY Danjuma, Zamani Lekwot in addition to, Malam Tanko Yakasai and Professors Iya Abubakar, Aminu Jubril and Ango Abdullahi and the complete clan of Nigerian elder statesmen of northern extraction, who had tremendously contributed to the development of the North and the complete nation.
When the scorecards of El-Rufai and Uba Sani are juxtaposed, the image is crystal clear as to who has a greater political mastery. As an illustration, their tenures as governors of Kaduna state, it is vital that we start by inspecting the elemental and important space of peace, safety and harmonious coexistence among the many divergent communities beneath the 2.
2015 and 2023 noticed harrowing wave of unprecedented violence in Kaduna state. Below El-Rufai, banditry and kidnapping for ransom have been incessant occurrences in rural areas, cities and on the highways. In response to official statistics, over 20,000 folks have been killed within the a number of inter-communal clashes ceaselessly skilled beneath the governorship of El-Rufai.
Just like the Roman Emperor Nero who was fiddling whereas Rome was burning, El-Rufai was not bothered, confirmed no qualms or empathy over the blood bathtub that was going down beneath his watch. Actually, he was stoking the fireplace of ethnic and non secular conflicts via his authorities’s insurance policies of discriminatory and lopsided appointments and disdainful and condescending derogatory public remarks about folks of explicit sections of the state.
In distinction to the previous period, folks of Kaduna state have been heaving a sigh of aid for the ambiance of peace and tranquility that’s quickly returning to the state in lower than two years of Uba Sani’s management. The highways are quick turning into protected, simply as with bandits laying down their arms and embracing peace in droves, the forests and rural areas have gotten safer.
Final Saturday, February, 15, 2025, within the city of Kafanchan, Kaduna state witnessed an earthshaking political incident, with the decamping to the APC of high chieftains of opposition politicians within the state. Who might have imagined the likes of former governor Ramalan Yero, Senators Shehu Hunkuyi, JD La’ah and Shehu Sani going over into the APC? Definitely, that would not have occurred when El-Rufai was calling the photographs.
The magic wand of Uba Sani is just, offering simply, equitable and truthful management to all segments of the state. An urbane, polished and skilled politician, Uba Sani isn’t encumbered by any types of bigotry. Targeted and agency but, humble and self-effacing, Uba Sani is a silent achiever with out being brash, boisterous and cacophonous. An outdated saying goes thus: “empty vessels make the loudest sound.” Therein lies the distinction.