El-Rufai’s anointed, Uba Sani, emerges APC consensus guber candidate

Dattijo settles for Senate

Senator Uba Sani (Kaduna Central) has emerged as the consensus candidate for the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2023 gubernatorial race in the state.

The choice of Sani was announced to other aspirants after a closed-door meeting with party stakeholders in Kaduna, yesterday.

Governor Nasir el-Rufai reportedly anointed him for the ticket and the stakeholders tagged along.

Sani was Governor el-Rufai’s Special Adviser on Politics, and his personal assistant when he served as Minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.

The Guardian gathered that Sani was chosen after extensive discussion with some of the aspirants when the governor made his choice known to them.

One of the governorship aspirants, who preferred anonymity, said: “We met for about three hours. Everyone consented to the governor’s decision. He has chosen Uba as the flag bearer.

“We need to accept this as the will of Allah and avoid the unnecessary back talk. Let us see how to manage our supporters amicably.”

It was also gathered that the governor asked a former Chief of Staff and two-time Commissioner for Budget and Planning, Mohammed Abdullahi, popularly known as Dattijo, to pick the form for Kaduna Central in the Senate.

Dattijo, who was earlier touted as the anointed candidate of the governor, was planning to pick the governorship form on Friday.

One of the senator’s aides confirmed his choice by the governor, noting that he started consultation almost two years ahead of other aspirants.

“We are happy that the governor has anointed him. He started ahead of these other aspirants. The APC is a big family and we expect everybody to work with him for the good of the party,” he said in a telephone chat.

Meanwhile, in a recent television programme, El-Rufai had said that his preferred successor is in his core team.

“My preference is in our core team; that is the first 11. I said core team because these are the guys that have worked with me since 2014 to organise our party, our campaign, and we won and got elected,” the governor said.

Apart from Sani, the 10 other members of the team are the Deputy Governor, Hadiza Balarabe; Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Balarabe Lawal; Commissioner for Finance, Bashir Saidu; Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs, Samuel Aruwan and Dattijo.