With Kaduna’s 2027 political battle traces starting to emerge, the bitter fallout between former Governor Nasir El-Rufai and his successor, Uba Sani, raises a compelling query: can two males as soon as sure by political alliance discover frequent floor once more, or has their falling-out turn out to be a degree of no return? From the corridors of Government House to the shifting camps of social gathering politics, their strained relationship stays an unfinished drama with penalties for Kaduna’s political future.
When Sani succeeded El-Rufai in 2023, the transition seemed to be a rigorously choreographed passing of the baton inside the similar political household. But the music quickly modified. Beneath the floor of the succession, cracks started to widen over governance, loyalty and the dealing with of the earlier administration’s file.
The rupture acquired a deeply private dimension in August 2025, when El-Rufai publicly declared that Sani had by no means been his pal. It was a startling assertion, one which stripped away the velvet curtain of political affiliation and uncovered the bitterness beneath.
Yet, politics is a home of revolving doorways, the place yesterday’s adversaries generally discover themselves at the similar desk tomorrow.
That chance briefly flickered in March 2026, following the demise of El-Rufai’s mom, Hajiya Umma El-Rufai. Sani’s condolence message and attendance at the funeral prayers supplied a second of human heat amid the political frost. But whereas the gesture urged that courtesy had survived the quarrel, it didn’t essentially imply the hatchet had been buried.
Meanwhile, Kaduna’s political chessboard continues to shift, with some former El-Rufai associates transferring in direction of Sani’s camp forward of 2027. El-Rufai’s departure from the APC and his ongoing authorized battles have additional sophisticated the street to rapprochement.
For reconciliation to take root, ceremonial gestures should give method to trustworthy conversations, mutual restraint and a willingness to look past bruised egos and competing pursuits.
For now, the bridge between the two males stays suspended over troubled waters. Whether it turns into a passage to peace or a monument to a damaged alliance could rely upon what occurs subsequent in Kaduna’s unforgiving recreation of energy.
