Senator Shehu Sani has dismissed the significance of former Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai’s defection from the All Progressives Congress (APC), saying it will not affect the party’s chances in the 2027 elections.
El-Rufai, a founding member of the APC, officially joined the Social Democratic Party on Monday. Senator Sani, who also hails from Kaduna State, described his departure as “good riddance,” adding that El-Rufai had been a liability to the ruling party.
“First of all, for those of us from Kaduna State, it is a good redance because he stands as a liability to the party in the state and I can back this with facts. In 2015, APC had two senators. By 2023, all the senatorial zones were taken over by PDP and out of the 14 House of Representatives seats in Kaduna State. Under Nasiru, by the time he left, almost nine of the seats were won by PDP, two by Labour Party, and then three by APC.”
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Backing his claim with electoral results, Senator Sani argued that the APC lost considerable support in Kaduna during El-Rufai’s tenure as governor. He insisted that the former governor’s defection would have minimal impact on the party’s future prospects.
“With him as a governor, the APC also lost the presidential election in Kaduna state, with Aswaju Ahmedbola to be pulling 399,273 votes and Atiku pulling about 554,260 votes. So you can see that by the time he left, already the party was an unpopular platform in the state. So his exit now is an opportunity for the governor and party leaders of the state to embrace the people of the state and to reconfigure and reassess the party towards the next election.That is on one side.”
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