Sen. Shehu Sani: Betraying the gullible

It is finally in. President Buhari and the APC have dumped Senator Shehu Sani’s ambition to fly the party’s flag in the contest for the Senate seat for the Central Zone in Kaduna State. The maverick Senator’s avowed enemy and Governor el-Rufa’i’s principal weapon against him, Uba Sani, is now confirmed as the candidate. The […]

It is finally in. President Buhari and the APC have dumped Senator Shehu Sani’s ambition to fly the party’s flag in the contest for the Senate seat for the Central Zone in Kaduna State. The maverick Senator’s avowed enemy and Governor el-Rufa’i’s principal weapon against him, Uba Sani, is now confirmed as the candidate. The Senator has left the party. This is a monumental victory for the Governor in his unending battles with the Senator. For now, he has earned all bragging rights, although his advisers, if he tolerates any, may suggest that celebrations should be muted in view of the impact of this decision on his lean electoral fortunes. History will record this development as an epic betrayal by President Buhari or the price for unforgivable gullibility by Sen. Sani, or both.
State governors are among the most destructive parasites in Nigeria’s shrinking democracy, drawing huge influence from institutionalized plunder of public funds to buy off their parties and other democratic, law and order institutions. Presidents and party leaders since 1999 have had to deal with governors who ride to power through the democratic process, then turn around to use every means money can buy to subvert it. In most instances, they had their ways. New APC Chairman Oshiomhole could write a book on his travails in the hands of APC Governors in his bid to introduce reforms. Under President Buhari, they perfected the art of fawning to his ego and exploiting all his personal weaknesses. No one was better at this than Governor el-Rufai.
This is the egotistical and combative governor Senator Sani took on from very early into their mandates, berating him publicly as anti-people, oppressive, undemocratic and cruel. He earned a place as the most outstanding critic of the governor, winning admirers from the many casualties of the governor’s insensitive policies, as well as armies of paid and volunteer enemies in equal measure. He must have calculated that an image and record of standing up to el-Rufa’i was a fail-safe strategy for succeeding him, and on second thought, for securing a second term as senator. On occasions, he took on President Buhari’s policies and records directly, fishing in waters that abound with shortfalls over the fight against corruption and national security. Then he combined with other senators to block Governor el-Rufai’s request for approval of a $350m foreign loan. The rejection of the request must have hurt very badly, because the insults and rhetorics from the governor’s camp skyrocketed dramatically. By this time, el-Rufai had fallen out with just about everyone who could help him out over a loan he needed desperately, and it was not in Buhari’s character to kneel to Saraki for el-Rufai.
Events were unfolding elsewhere, however, which were to have a huge impact on relations between the governor and the Senator. A large number of APC legislators and other politicians were planning to defect to PDP, and Sani was in the thick of it, even though he was never PDP. el-Rufai must have prayed fervently that Sani will defect, because that would have given him a little more room for maneuver, certainly in circles where being PDP is synonymous with ungodliness and gross hostility to Buhari. Then Sani made a strategic move that defied all expectations: he broke ranks and jumped the defection ship at the last minute, pitching his tent with Buhari. A grateful Buhari embraced him, and the world was told that the prodigal Sani is now a favoured child. Chairman Oshiomhole rolled out the red carpet for him, even at the risk of injuring a rather delicate relationship with el-Rufai. It was made clear that Sani’s loyalty to Buhari was a premium the party was willing to sacrifice everything to protect, including el-Rufai’s ego. Sani believed that the party’s ticket was his, and his long and bruising battle with el-Rufa’i (in which Uba Sani is a mere proxy) was finally to be settled in his favour.
He was wrong. He had underestimated el-Rufa’i’s fighting capacity and the frailty of Buhari’s loyalty to others. The romance between Buhari/APC and Sani merely encouraged el-Rufa’i to re-arm for a new phase in the war over who really calls all the shots in Kaduna State. An automatic ticket to Sani would have represented a major setback for a governor who had sworn to retire all his enemies, even if, like him, their hands had been raised by Buhari. A gripping cat-and-mouse ensued over an automatic ticket for a self-styled champion of democracy, an unfair advantage that would have handed him a victory without any contest. Oshiomhole and the party were willing to deny basic rights of party members to choose their candidates, and offer them as reward for loyalty to a democratically-elected president. In the heat of the battle, el-Rufa’i, whose prowess for political letter-writing is bettered only by Obasanjo, sent Buhari a catalogue of Sani’s sins, reminding the President that the project to stop Sani was his in the first place. President Buhari duly told Sani and all aspirants in the zone to submit to a contest. One had earlier been organized by el-Rufa’i which of course was boycotted by Sani and won by the governor’s aspirant, Uba. In the end, this was the contest that did Sani in.
Senator Sani’s faith in the commitment of President Buhari to remain loyal to him and guarantee that he gets the automatic ticket was sustained until the last minute. For a man who claims to have seen the best and worst of human character, his gullibility, if you want to be charitable, is almost child-like. For Sani to believe that Buhari will hurt el-Rufai’s ego for his born-again loyalty, you will have to believe that he is unfamiliar with both of these men. A man from the same locale who is familiar with recent history of the two, Sani should have known that Buhari had never gone against el-Rufai. There is also a hint of some contempt for the President’s aging memory and sense of judgement in Sani’s assumption that a singular act of refusing to defect will give him a clean bill of health and place him higher on the pedestal than el-Rufai.
Now that the President has yielded to el-Rufai and has sacrificed Sani’s attempted shortcut, bloodied his party’s nose, compounded the inconsistencies in the manner candidates emerge in the APC, triggered massive problems for the party in the forthcoming elections and reinforced the grip of governor el-Rufai over him, only a credible election will reveal the winner in these huge gambles. Sani will need a miracle to reinvent himself politically. Oshiomhole now knows the limits of his powers. The party will have hundreds of disputes over the legitimacy of candidates, but none will reveal so many intimate details over character of two key players in the APC, President Buhari and Governor el-Rufa’i.

Jamila Abubakar wrote this piece from Abuja