The dust has settled in Kaduna, and the verdict is unequivocal: Nasir El-Rufai’s political obituary has been written by the very people he once ruled with an iron fist.
Last weekend’s by-election, where the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) swept all three contested seats, wasn’t just a defeat for the opposition. It was the final, humiliating punctuation mark on the career of a man who gambled his legacy on vengeance and lost.
El-Rufai’s fall from “kingmaker” to political corpse began when the senate rejected his ministerial nomination in 2023, a rare rebuke that exposed his toxic baggage. His response? A petulant defection to the opposition, framed as a crusade against the APC “betrayers.” He staked everything on the Kaduna by-elections, crisscrossing the state to prove his relevance. But Kaduna’s voters delivered a brutal lesson ‘fear is not loyalty.’ The results were catastrophic: APC won Chikun/Kajuru by 23,089 votes, Zaria Kewaye by 20,892, and Basawa by 5,497. El-Rufai campaigned not for principles but for redemption, backing the Alliance for Democratic Congress (ADC) in one constituency, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in another, while his own son remained an APC lawmaker. This hypocrisy wasn’t lost on voters. As a market woman in Kaduna North declared: “He demolished my stall in 2020. Now he wants my vote? Let him taste the dust he created.”
Three fatal flaws defined El-Rufai’s hubris. First, the ghost of autocracy haunted him. His reign (2015–2023) was defined by bulldozers, not bridges—communities razed, dissenters silenced, sectarian tensions weaponised. Unlike Arnold Schwarzenegger, who pivoted to pragmatism after electoral setbacks, El-Rufai doubled down on intimidation. Kaduna replied: “Your time is over.” Second, the APC’s ruthless efficiency crushed him. Governor Uba Sani, El-Rufai’s own protégé, flooded Kaduna with visible projects while framing his former mentor as a “sore loser.” Third, the opposition’s funeral pyre consumed him. El-Rufai allied with ADC and SDP, parties so weak that ADC scraped 146 votes in Basawa. This isn’t opposition; it is political bankruptcy.
El-Rufai now faces three ignominious paths. He could chase kingmaker fantasies, brokering opposition alliances for 2027. But after this humiliation, who will trust a leader whose own stronghold rejected him? The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) remains a “Fuji house of commotion”; Labour Party (LP) lacks structure. Delusion won’t revive corpses. He could retreat to exile—academia or consultancy, his pre-defection plan. But corruption probes into Kaduna’s finances under his watch loom. Escape won’t be easy. Most likely, he will fade into irrelevance, lingering on Twitter, raging impotently as Nigeria moves on. A cautionary tale of wasted potential.
Kaduna’s verdict transcends El-Rufai. It is a warning to every “strongman” who confuses fear with respect. Nigeria’s voters, battered by inflation and insecurity, are hungrier for humility than hubris. They punished El-Rufai not for leaving the APC but for believing they owed him loyalty after years of oppression. As the great political theorist Hannah Arendt wrote: “Tyrants are defeated not by revolutions, but by the quiet refusal of the ruled to play along.” Kaduna refused to play along. The lion’s roar is now a whimper. His terminal exit from politics, triggered not by courts or conspiracies, but by the voters he scorned, is democracy’s poetic justice. For Nigeria, the lesson is clear: ‘Autocracy dies when ballots replace bulldozers’.