Kaduna Sate Governor Uba Sani and his immediate predecessor in office, Malam Nasir El-Rufai, are now at loggerheads over good governance as the crisis of confidence between the two of them has taken a new dimension.
It is instructive to note that El-Rufai was stopped from becoming a minister in 2023 by his opponents in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) while he has recently become a vocal critic of the party and President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
The former Kaduna Governor took the first jab at his party during a programme in Abuja last week and said that many things were not right with the ruling party
But in an interview on TVC, Governor Sani disagreed with his predecessor, asking what the president’s critics did differently when they were in power.
Governor Sani also insisted that no president in Nigeria’s history has practised democracy like Tinubu.
He said, “Most of these politicians that came out and say they are coming as a coalition, they are politicians that were in government only less than two years ago. What did they do when they were in government? They were only fighting for power, not because they could do anything better. No president in the history of Nigeria has really practiced democracy like President Bola Ahmed Tinubu”.
But El-Rufai in a post on his X on Tuesday titled ‘Kaduna Update’, tackled Sani, saying the Kaduna Governor is “embarrassingly and sycophantically rambling”, everyday.
According to El-Rufai, Kaduna people will judge at the right time and place.
He wrote, “I used to wonder why? However, confirming that Federal Government ‘reimbursements, interventions and grants’ in excess of N150bn have been given selectively to Kaduna by Tinubu, in the last 18 months, now explains everything.”
“By all means, defend Asiwaju for the conditional cash transfer. Asiwaju has earned it, coming from you. The people of Kaduna State will judge at the right time and place. Have a nice day. – #ConcernedKadunaCitizen”.
In another post, El-Rufai quoted former British Prime Minister Tony Blair as saying sometime ago: “And in a developing nation, where people struggle to put food on the table, go to school, get rudimentary healthcare, eke out an existence not a career, (social services) delivery can be the difference between life and death; or at least the difference between a life with hope and one without it.
“They (citizens) want the problems impacting their lives solved or at least mitigated. They want a higher standard of living, a better quality of life, improved healthcare and education and security.”
It is important to note that Governor Sani and El-Rufai fell apart shortly after the former took over the reins in Kaduna.
When the issue of the rift between the duo came up in the interview, Sani denied existence of any rift between him and his predecessor, claiming that their relationship is cordial.
He then said, “I can tell you there’s no problem between me and my predecessor. Our relationship is very cordial, and there’s nothing wrong with our relationship. What is more important here is moving our state forward.”
