Kaduna State Governor, Uba Sani, has insisted that he has never said anything bad about his predecessor, Nasir El-Rufai, as the former governor approaches his ninth month in the custody of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission. Sani made the claim on Tuesday during an appearance on Trust TV’s Daily Politics, where he was asked whether he feared El-Rufai’s influence ahead of the next election. “I have never spoken anything bad about him, and I will never speak anything bad about him,” the governor said.
Sani also distanced himself from a remark by a supporter of his party who suggested that El-Rufai should stay in detention until after the election. “The person that made that statement was speaking for himself. He was not speaking for me,” he said. He did not name the person, although a similar call was attributed to former Kaduna North senator, Suleiman Hunkuyi, on October 18.
The governor said he had taken steps to show his regard for El-Rufai but would not make them public. “When you respect someone, you don’t come out to say certain things,” he explained. He added that he consults former Kaduna governors regularly, citing advice from Ahmed Makarfi on the Soba to Zaria road and a Government House design he obtained from former Vice President Namadi Sambo.
His comments sit uneasily with the public record of the past two and a half years. At a town hall meeting on March 30, 2024, Sani said his administration inherited debts of $587 million, ₦85 billion and 115 contractual liabilities from the El-Rufai government. He also said ₦7 billion of the state’s ₦10 billion federal allocation for that March had been deducted at source to service debt, leaving his government struggling to pay salaries.
Weeks later, the Kaduna State House of Assembly set up a 13-member ad hoc committee to examine loans, grants and contracts awarded between May 29, 2015 and May 29, 2023. In June 2024, the Assembly adopted the panel’s report, which alleged that ₦423 billion was misappropriated under the former governor. El-Rufai denied the allegations, said he was proud of his record and went to court to challenge the Assembly.
The two men were once close allies. El-Rufai, a founding member of the All Progressives Congress, backed Sani as his successor in 2023 and supported President Bola Tinubu’s presidential bid that year. He later fell out with the administration and defected to the opposition African Democratic Congress, where he has been a leading figure in its 2027 campaign.
His legal troubles deepened in February. He was stopped by Department of State Services operatives at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja on February 12 on his return from Cairo, and later presented himself to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission before being transferred to the ICPC. Court records show he has been held under remand orders since February 18, a period of about 252 days as of Tuesday.
The ICPC has filed charges against him in federal and state courts, including an allegation that he unlawfully intercepted the phone calls of the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu. A Kaduna State High Court refused his second bail application on June 10, and the Court of Appeal in Kaduna upheld that decision on October 9. The appellate panel held that he had not shown fresh facts or special circumstances to justify bail, but said he could return to the trial court if the prosecution failed to pursue the case diligently.
On Monday, the Federal High Court in Abuja ruled that El-Rufai had a case to answer on the phone interception charge, rejecting his no-case submission. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges and maintains that his prosecution is politically motivated. The ADC and his family have accused the Federal Government of using anti-corruption agencies to sideline him before 2027, a claim the ruling party and the authorities reject, insisting that due process is being followed.
Concerns over his health have now been added to the case. Medical documents dated October 22 indicate that a blood culture test detected Enterococcus faecium, a bacterium resistant to the antibiotic vancomycin, with possible sepsis listed among the clinical concerns. The documents also show that his doctors recommended hospital admission for the 66-year-old, though they do not link the finding to his detention.
Sani, who is expected to seek a second term, said he had warned from the start of his tenure that governance would come with challenges. “The way to succeed is to be humble and listen to people who advise you,” he said. El-Rufai’s trial and any fresh bail application before the Kaduna and Abuja courts are expected to continue in the coming weeks.