Shehu Sani Breaks Silence: Why He Returned to the APC After Leaving in 2018
Shehu Sani, the former lawmaker who represented Kaduna Central Senatorial District, has revealed the reason behind his return to the All Progressives Congress (APC) after leaving the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Sani, who departed the APC in October 2018 due to controversies surrounding the party’s primaries, later joined the PDP and secured the party’s senatorial ticket. However, he lost the 2019 election to the current Governor of Kaduna State, Uba Sani.
On February 16, 2025, Sani rejoined the APC along with some members of the PDP and the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) in Kaduna. Speaking during an appearance on Channels Television’s Hard Copy program, he explained that his decision to return to the ruling party was largely due to the efforts of the current Kaduna governor, who had been reaching out and holding reconciliation talks across the state.
Sani noted, “A circumstance led to our mass exit from the APC sometime in 2018, and that circumstance has changed, and then we rejoined the APC in Kaduna state.”
He continued, “First of all, I was a founding member of APC, particularly in Kaduna state. We established structures, ran the campaigns, and won the 2015 elections both at the senatorial and the governorship levels. Somewhere along the way, we parted ways with the governor (Nasir El-Rufai) in the state.”
The former senator explained that the split was caused by political, personal, and state-related issues, which led to his exit from the party. However, with a new governor in place, Sani revealed that he and others had reconciled with the leadership and agreed to return to the APC.
“We parted ways over differences that are both political, personal and also issues that affect the state, and for that reason, we had to evict ourselves out of the party. Now we have a new governor who reached out to us. A governor who has been making consultations, building bridges across the state,” Sani said.
He concluded by stating that the decision to return to the party they helped establish in Kaduna was driven by a renewed sense of collaboration and a desire to contribute to the development of the state.
