Facts have emerged on why Chairman, Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance and Other Financial Institutions, Senator Uba Sani, has been endorsed as the consensus candidate of Governor Nasir El-Rufai’s Core Team for the Kaduna State governorship seat in 2023.
Sources told The Star that Sani’s vast and varied experience as a presidential aide, Political Adviser and track record at the upper legislative chambers earned him the endorsement.
The source, who craved for anonymity, added that Senator Sani has always come tops amongst the three aspirants from El Rufai’s political family, in all the series of opinion polls that the governor had commissioned.
According to him, the governor had to quickly convene a meeting of his Core Team to iron out who amongst the three aspirants should be anointed because “the activities of supporters of two of them were heating up the polity.”
The source said that all the three gubernatorial aspirants boast of impressive curriculum vitae and have proven their individual capacities in the last seven years but stakeholders “wanted the best of the three to be endorsed, so that APC can approach the primaries as a united house.”
“Dr. Hadiza Balarabe, the first elected female Deputy Governor in the state, had acted as governor on several occasions and is seen as capable. She is a consultant in public health, she had led the state’s strong response to Covid-19 and enjoys unique status as a powerful Number 2 to El-Rufai.
“Muhammad Sani Abdullahi, who is fondly known as ‘Dattijo,’ is an international development expert who served twice as Planning and Budget Commissioner and was El-Rufai’s Chief of Staff. He is young, bright and hardworking.
“On his part, Uba Sani is an outstanding first term lawmaker, who is amongst the top 10 senators with the highest number of bills. He has sponsored 21 bills in his three-year stay in the Senate, placing him as the fourth highest legislator in terms of sponsorship of bills,” the source told The Star.
Another source said Uba Sani had had used his influence to secure funding for the construction of Faculty of Engineering at the permanent site of Kaduna State University (KASU).
“Similarly, he sponsored the bill for the establishment of Federal College of Education, Giwa, Federal Medical Centre Rigasa, Kaduna as well as the Federal College of Forestry Technology and Research, Birnin Gwari, amongst others” he said.
He also initiated two bills that have been signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari and they are the new Banking and Other Financial Institutions Act (BOFIA) and the new AMCON Act.
A ranking member of Kaduna State chapter of All Progressives Congress (APC) praised Governor El-Rufai for “resolving the issue of ‘anointed candidate’ amicably within his Team.”
He said that some gubernatorial aspirants were eager to announce their bids much earlier in the year but El-Rufai counselled against that, arguing that they should wait till after the convention.
The party source said that the governor had advised that it was more urgent to first safeguard the corporate health and viability of APC, by focusing on the success of the convention, than focusing on their ambitions.
After a successful national convention, Senator Uba Sani and Muhammad Sani Abdullahi flagged off their campaigns at about the same time while the Deputy Governor started a series of consultations.
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“This development created some kind of confusion within the rank and file of the party because three members of the governor’s team were interested in succeeding him in 2023. This had the potential of dividing the party.”
“Coupled with that, supporters of each aspirant, especially the senator and Dattijo’s campaign teams, claimed that they had the governor’s full backing and they sometimes used strong language against each other,” he said.
The source said that the party hierarchy was alarmed by this infighting and so El-Rufai had to nip this growing discord within his political family, in the bud very fast.
A member of El-Rufai’s cabinet who is also amongst the Core Team, further shed light on how Uba Sani’s endorsement was “signed, sealed and delivered with no victor no vanquished.”
“You know that El-Rufai is a digital politician who is tech-savvy and he exercises leadership in whatever he does. Opinion polls, regular meetings and assessments all played a role in the final endorsement of Uba Sani,” the cabinet member said.
Describing Senator Sani’s anointment as a masterstroke of consultative but bold leadership, the source said that the governor carried all stakeholders along, just as he did in the ward, local government and state congresses of 2021.
“First, Senator Uba Sani is the Core Team’s consensus candidate. Second, Dattijo will vie for the Senate to continue his political career at the national level and gain experience in lawmaking while Senator Suleiman Abdu Kwari has been pencilled down to retain his seat as the senator representing Kaduna North Senatorial District,” he added.
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