Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna state has broken silence over Senator Shehu Sani’s decision to remain in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). Daily Nigerian reports that Sani, who had earlier shown interest in defecting to PDP over his feud with El-Rufai, stunned political observers when he changed decision to remain in the party at the eleventh hour.
News gathered that the senator was among the 42 out of the 53 APC senators who paid allegiance to President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday, July 25, at the First Lady conference room in Aso Rock.
Responding to a question during a live radio programme on Thursday night, July 26, El-Rufai likened Sani’s crimes to a “political apostasy.” The governor noted that he would not be fully accommodated back into the party until he corrected what led to the “political apostasy.”
El-Rufai listed some of the senator’s crimes as rejecting the $350m World Bank loan request at the senate, adding that the senator also remained suspended from the party at the ward level. “He has to repent, tell Kaduna people why he sabotaged them.
He has to also go back to the ward level, because as far as we are concerned he remains suspended from the party”, he said. In April, the Senate rejected Kaduna state government’s request for the approval of a $350 million loan, after three senators from the state, including Sani, kicked against the request.
The three senators also warned other banks against giving the state facility. “Caution to chief executives of commercial banks and other finance houses, local and abroad, on loan offers beyond the solvency of Kaduna state government emphasised that the Kaduna State Government recently failed the Legal litmus test in obtaining a World Bank facility to the tune of USD 350,000,000, through the process of the Nigerian Senate,” the trio had said.
It is however not clear whether El-Rufai would accept Sani when the national leadership of the party intervenes.
News had previously reported that senator representing Kaduna central in the National Assembly, senator Shehu Sani on Thursday, July 26, declared that he remains a member of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC).
