REJOINDER TO IBRAHIM NUHU SA'IDU: YOU CANNOT REWRITE A POLITICAL HISTORY YOU DID NOT LIVE

A Response to Ibrahim Nuhu Saidu’s “A Measured Rebuttal to the Departure Narrative of Mukthar Isa Hazo and Co.”

By Engr. Anas Adam 

There is a fundamental problem with Ibrahim Nuhu Saidu’s article: he writes with considerable confidence about a political relationship he did not build, a political family he was not part of, and events whose internal dynamics he could not possibly know better than the people who lived through them.

His article may sound measured. It may be elegantly written. But elegant language does not turn second-hand political interpretation into first-hand political history.

The people he is attempting to explain away are not strangers to Kaduna politics. They are not recent arrivals looking for relevance. They are men and women who worked with Malam Nasir El-Rufai, defended him, mobilised for him, occupied senior positions in his administration and, more importantly, helped build the political structures through which he achieved electoral victories.

So, before Ibrahim Nuhu Saidu begins explaining why they left, perhaps he should first ask whether he is in a position to tell them why they left.

You cannot call everyone a beneficiary because they disagree with their former leader.

One of the weakest arguments in Ibrahim Nuhu Saidu's article is the suggestion that because some of the former associates held government positions, they should now be understood primarily as beneficiaries of El-Rufai's political success.

That argument is deeply simplistic.

Yes, some of them served as commissioners. Some served as chief of staff. Some were legislators. Some held party positions.

But what came first?

Did these people become politicians because El-Rufai appointed them, or did many of them already possess political structures, relationships, communities and political identities before El-Rufai's administration?

The answer is obvious to anyone who genuinely understands Kaduna politics.

Many of these people were already political actors before El-Rufai became governor. They had their own networks. They had contested elections. They had supporters. They had relationships across local government areas. They had spent years building political capital.

El-Rufai did not create Kaduna politics.

He became a major figure within an existing political environment.

And the relationship worked because both sides brought something to the table.

El-Rufai brought his own political capital, national profile and leadership. The associates brought grassroots structures, local relationships, mobilisation capacity, political experience and human networks.

That is what a political alliance is.

To rewrite that history now as though everyone else merely received appointments from a benevolent political leader is not analysis. It is political revisionism.

The real issue is not whether El-Rufai had a right to choose his friends.

Ibrahim Nuhu Saidu spends considerable time explaining that every political leader has the right to choose confidants and family members.

Nobody disputes that.

That is a diversion from the real issue.

The question is not:

“Did El-Rufai have the right to trust his family?”

Of course he did.

The question is:

“What happened to the political relationship between El-Rufai and the people who helped build the political structure around him?”

Those are two completely different questions.

Nobody is arguing that a governor must consult every former political associate before making a decision.

But when large numbers of former associates independently reach the conclusion that they have become politically marginalised, the responsible response is not to insult their intelligence by assuming that they all suddenly became opportunists to the extent that Bello Elrufa'i is calling them hypocrites.

At some point, the possibility that something went wrong in the relationship has to be examined.

The most important event is the one Ibrahim Nuhu Sa'idu cannot explain away. 

The decisive issue is not whether political relationships naturally change.

Of course they do.

The decisive issue is what happened when the future political succession of Kaduna became the central question.

The former associates had one political expectation.

Ja'afar Sani was widely regarded within the former governor's political camp as a potential successor and had been publicly discussed in that context. When the ADC governorship primary eventually took place, Isa Ashiru defeated Jafaru Sani by a wide margin, 86,113 votes to 29,580. Jafaru Sani rejected the result and alleged irregularities.

But the issue for the former associates was not merely the numerical outcome of the primary.

It was the political message they believed that outcome represented.

They had spent years standing with El-Rufai.

They had defended him.

They had built structures with him.

And then, at the point when the political future of that camp was being determined, they saw El-Rufai and members of his family developing an accommodation with Isa Ashiru Kudan, a politician who had previously been a major electoral rival of the El-Rufai political camp.

That is the rupture.

That is the context Ibrahim Nuhu Saidu's article tries to reduce to ordinary political realignment.

And yes, Isa Ashiru was a political rival.

This is not a minor detail.

Ashiru contested the Kaduna governorship against El-Rufai in 2019 and later contested against Uba Sani in 2023. He subsequently became the ADC candidate for the 2027 Kaduna governorship.

So when former associates ask why the political camp that had spent years building around El-Rufai ultimately accommodated Ashiru, they are asking a legitimate political question.

They are not saying that Ashiru has no right to contest.

They are asking why the political direction changed so dramatically when there were already established expectations within the former governor's camp.

And this is where Ibrahim Nuhu Saidu's argument becomes particularly weak.

He wants the former associates to recognise El-Rufai's right to make political calculations.

Fine.

But then he must recognise their right to make political calculations in response to those calculations.

Political agency cannot be a one-way privilege.

What about the Ashiru controversy?

There is another point that cannot simply be erased.

In July 2026, a controversial audio circulated in which a voice purported to be Isa Ashiru was alleged to say that joining the ADC was primarily a strategy to obtain the party's governorship ticket. Ashiru's camp disputed the authenticity of the recording and described it as manipulated.

Therefore, nobody should present the audio as proven fact.

But the controversy itself became part of the political environment surrounding Ashiru's candidacy.

More importantly, the political relationship between Ashiru and the El-Rufai family did not remain merely theoretical. Reporting documented Ashiru's meeting with Nasir El-Rufai in July 2026, while other reports documented public interactions between Ashiru and El-Rufai's sons following the ADC primary.

So the former associates were not imagining that a significant political realignment was taking place.

They were watching it happen.

This is where Ibrahim Nuhu Saidu's “opportunism” argument collapses.

Ibrahim Nuhu Sa'idu suggests that the former associates may simply have moved toward Governor Uba Sani because the incumbent governor offers greater political access and protection.

That is an accusation of motive.

Where is the evidence?

If political realignment automatically proves opportunism, then what should we call El-Rufai's own political realignments throughout his career?

Political actors change alliances.

Political circumstances change.

Political interests change.

Political calculations change.

That is politics.

The former associates are therefore entitled to say:

If El-Rufai has the right to make a political calculation, we have the same right.

If he can choose Ashiru, they can choose Uba Sani.

If he can leave old political understandings behind, they can do the same.

If he can pursue what he considers his political interest, they can pursue theirs.

That is not betrayal.

That is political independence.

Governor Uba Sani did not need to “buy” their loyalty.

This is another point that deserves clarification.

The former associates did not say that Uba Sani purchased their loyalty.

They said that Governor Uba Sani extended a hand of reconciliation.

That distinction matters.

Governor Uba Sani is the incumbent governor of Kaduna State. His administration represents the current political reality in the state.

When former political associates of a previous administration decide to reconcile with the incumbent administration, that is not automatically evidence of opportunism.

It can also be interpreted as an attempt to end political hostility and rebuild political cooperation.

Indeed, the former associates themselves explained their return to the APC as following a reconciliation initiative by Governor Uba Sani. That position has been reported independently.

Ibrahim Nuhu Sa'idu is free to disagree with that explanation.

He is not entitled to replace their explanation with his own and then present his interpretation as fact.

The “long list of people who left” argument deserves serious attention.

Ibrahim Nuhu Sa'idu says the list of people who have fallen out with El-Rufai is not necessarily evidence of a problem because powerful political leaders everywhere experience turnover.

There is some truth in that.

But it does not answer the question.

One departure may be dismissed as personal disagreement.

Two may be coincidence.

But when a political leader repeatedly experiences serious disagreements with former close associates, the intellectually honest response is neither to declare the leader guilty nor to declare every departing associate guilty.

The appropriate response is to ask:

What pattern, if any, exists?

That is precisely the question Ibrahim Nuhu Sa'idu avoids.

Instead, he tells us that Nigerian politics is transactional.

If that is his argument, then why should we be surprised that former associates have now made a political transaction of their own?

The people who followed Uba Sani are not political children.

This is perhaps the most patronising aspect of the rebuttal.

The people involved are experienced politicians.

Some have been elected.

Some have governed ministries.

Some have managed political structures.

Some have won and lost elections.

Some have served as party leaders.

Some have spent decades operating at grassroots level.

To suggest that they were simply lured away from El-Rufai by access to power is to underestimate the political sophistication of the people involved.

These are not people who woke up yesterday and discovered Kaduna politics.

They know exactly what they are doing.

They know El-Rufai.

They know Uba Sani.

They know the political history.

They know the alliances.

They know the disagreements.

And they have made a decision.

One may disagree with that decision.

One cannot honestly pretend they are incapable of making it.

The fundamental question Ibrahim Nuhu Sa'idu Saidu should answer

Rather than asking:

“Why did these people leave El-Rufai?”

perhaps Saidu should ask:

“Why did people who once stood so firmly with El-Rufai reach a point where they preferred to reconcile with his political successor rather than remain in his camp?”

That is the uncomfortable question.

And no amount of sophisticated prose can make it disappear.

The former associates have offered their explanation.

They say the relationship deteriorated.

They say they felt increasingly excluded.

They say the political understanding changed.

They say the succession issue became decisive.

And they say the subsequent embrace of Isa Ashiru was the final rupture.

One may challenge every one of those claims.

But the proper response is to challenge them with evidence—not to tell the people who lived through the experience that they did not understand what happened to them.

This is not about hatred for El-Rufai.

The former associates have not argued that El-Rufai achieved nothing.

They have not denied his contribution to Kaduna politics.

They have not said he has no political rights.

They have simply said:

“We are choosing another political direction.”

That should not be difficult to understand.

A political leader can be consequential and still lose the support of former associates.

A former ally can acknowledge someone's achievements and still disagree with his political choices.

Both things can be true at the same time.

The final irony

Ibrahim Nuhu Saidu's article repeatedly invokes political independence while attempting to question the independence of those who left El-Rufai.

That is the contradiction.

He argues that El-Rufai had the right to make strategic political calculations.

We agree.

But if that principle is valid, it must apply to everybody.

The former associates are adults.

They made their choice.

They chose Governor Uba Sani and the APC.

They did so after years of political experience and after witnessing the evolution of the relationship from within.

They do not need permission from El-Rufai.

And they certainly do not need permission from a commentator who was not part of those relationships.

Let the debate therefore be about facts.

Let El-Rufai explain his political choices.

Let the former associates explain theirs.

Let Ashiru explain his political journey.

Let Governor Uba Sani explain his reconciliation efforts.

And let the people of Kaduna judge the competing accounts.

But one thing should be made clear:

You cannot rewrite the history of a political family from outside that family and then tell those who lived through it that their experience is merely opportunism.

The former associates are not denying El-Rufai's political significance.

They are asserting their own political significance.

They are not claiming ownership of Kaduna.

They are rejecting the idea that anyone else can claim ownership of their political future.

And their message is ultimately very simple:

We stood with El-Rufai when he needed us. When his political choices changed, we exercised our own political choice.

That is not betrayal.

That is politics.

And in a democracy, political loyalty is voluntary—not hereditary, not permanent, and certainly not transferable as personal property.

Kaduna politics belongs to the people of Kaduna, not to any individual politician.