Governor Uba Sani of Kaduna State has drawn widespread condemnation from Nigerians after declaring publicly and without apology that Kaduna has become a one-party state under the All Progressives Congress, a statement that has been received with outrage and disbelief, particularly given the governor’s own roots in the National Democratic Coalition, the pro-democracy group that risked lives fighting military dictatorship to restore the very multi-party democracy he now boasts of having eliminated in his state.
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Speaking on Thursday in Kaduna while hosting a presidential delegation that included Special Adviser on Information and Strategy Bayo Onanuga, Sani stated: “Kaduna State, as we are speaking, we have no opposition. That’s the fact of the matter. We have brought Kaduna into a one-party state and I have no apology for that.”
The statement has triggered a storm of condemnation from Nigerians across political, ethnic, and regional lines, with citizens describing the governor’s boast as an affront to democracy, a betrayal of the NADECO legacy, and the most explicit confirmation yet of the opposition’s warnings that the ruling party is systematically working to impose a one-party system on Nigeria.
Addressing his commissioners and the visiting presidential delegation, Sani was unapologetic in his characterisation of Kaduna’s political landscape.
“To my commissioners, I just want to thank you, and I can assure you that Kaduna State, as we are speaking, we have no opposition. That’s the fact of the matter. We have brought Kaduna into a one-party state and I have no apology for that,” Sani stated.
He dismissed journalists who have criticised his administration, accusing them of approaching interviews with preconceived opinions.
“Some latter-day journalists were asking questions. You go to studio, they ask questions and they answer the questions themselves. Before getting to the studio, they already have their own opinion, and they want you to listen to them. But we can’t do that. Most of them have no historical perspectives of where we are coming from,” the governor added.
Sani used the occasion to declare unqualified support for President Tinubu’s 2027 re-election bid, making sweeping claims about the president’s impact on the North.
“No president has supported northern Nigeria as President Tinubu has done in less than three years,” Sani stated.
“And that is also why I cannot see any zone, not even the South-West, coming down to vote more for him than us. Let me make it clear to all of you, President Tinubu has done more for the North than any leader in this country,” the governor declared.
He pointed to security improvements in Birnin Gwari as evidence, recalling Tinubu’s visit to the area in December 2022.
“It was a journey of less than two hours, but it took us five hours. The problem was security, because at that time you could not travel from Kaduna to Birnin Gwari without military escort. But today, you can go there without police escort,” Sani stated.
He added that infrastructure improvements had boosted economic activity: “When you go to Birnin Gwari, you will see hundreds of vehicles passing to Lagos. It has improved the economic prosperity of our people who are farmers and small business owners.”
The governor cited a recently approved project for Kano State worth “almost N1 trillion” as further evidence of Tinubu’s commitment to the North.
Sani dismissed concerns about Tinubu’s re-election prospects with a distinction between social media sentiment and real-world electoral support that many Nigerians found ominous rather than reassuring.
“All the people talking that the president won’t win elections ,if elections are conducted on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and social media, that’s where he will lose. But if it is people that vote at polling units, he is going to get 70 per cent of the votes. That is the fact of the matter,” Sani stated.
“It’s not about social media, it’s about working on the ground. The masses appreciate President Tinubu because they know poverty has no religion and no tribal boundaries,” the governor added.
Nigerians were quick to point out the troubling implication of the governor’s formulation: if the president would lose on social media where opinions are freely expressed but win at polling units where the ruling party controls the machinery, the 70 per cent he predicts may reflect the power of incumbency and electoral manipulation rather than genuine popular support.
The reaction to Sani’s statement has been overwhelmingly negative, with Nigerians across different platforms condemning the governor’s boast as an assault on democratic values.
“He is celebrating the death of democracy in his state. This is not an achievement. This is a funeral,” one widely shared reaction stated.
“A governor boasting that there is no opposition is like a referee boasting that the other team didn’t show up. It is nothing to be proud of. It means the game is rigged,” another commentator observed.
“This is exactly what David Mark, Peter Obi, Makinde, and the opposition have been telling us. The APC is building a one-party state. And now their own governor has confirmed it with his own mouth, proudly, publicly, without shame,” a third reaction stated.
The condemnation extended beyond partisan lines, with some commentators who are not aligned with any opposition party expressing alarm at the normalisation of one-party dominance.
“Whether you support APC or not, no Nigerian should celebrate the absence of opposition. Opposition is what keeps government honest. Without it, corruption, incompetence, and tyranny have no check. This governor just told you he has eliminated all checks on his power and wants you to applaud him,” one commentator stated.
The most devastating criticism directed at Sani centres on his political history and the glaring contradiction between his pro-democracy roots and his celebration of one-party dominance.
Governor Uba Sani is associated with the National Democratic Coalition, the broad-based pro-democracy movement formed in 1994 to resist the military annulment of the June 12, 1993, presidential election won by Chief M.K.O. Abiola. NADECO members, which included politicians, activists, lawyers, and civil society figures, risked imprisonment, exile, and even death to challenge military dictatorship and restore multi-party democracy to Nigeria.
The organisation’s core demand was the restoration of democratic governance where multiple parties compete freely, citizens choose their leaders without coercion, and no single entity monopolises political power.
Nigerians have been asking what changed between the NADECO of the 1990s and the Uba Sani of 2026.
“NADECO fought so that Nigerians could have choices. Now a NADECO man is boasting that he has eliminated all choices in his state. What happened? Was it about democracy or was it always about power?” one commentator asked.
“The irony writes itself. NADECO struggled against one-party military rule. Their product now celebrates one-party civilian rule. The uniform changed but the mentality did not,” another observed.
“NADECO is supposed to stand for democratic coalition. There is nothing democratic about a one-party state. There is nothing coalition about eliminating all other parties. The name has become a joke in the mouths of men like Uba Sani,” a third commentator stated.
The criticism extends beyond Sani to question whether the pro-democracy credentials that many current political leaders claim from the NADECO era have any substantive meaning when those same leaders actively work to suppress political competition.
“He fought for democracy so he could become democracy’s undertaker. NADECO did not fight and die for this,” one Nigerian wrote, in a comment that has been widely shared and has come to encapsulate the public mood.
Several commentators asked pointedly: “Is NADECO not supposed to be a pro-democracy group? What is democratic about a one-party state? When did NADECO start celebrating the very thing it was formed to fight against? The military imposed one-party rule by force. These people are imposing it by manipulation. The result is the same.”
Sani’s admission arrives at a moment of maximum tension for Nigeria’s opposition, and it has been seized upon as vindication of every warning the opposition has issued.
At the Ibadan opposition summit on April 25, David Mark declared: “The move towards a one-party state is real. It has never happened before in this country, and it will not happen in our generation.”
Governor Seyi Makinde warned: “Democracy without opposition is not democracy. It is a slow drift toward a one-party state. And Nigeria must not make that drift.”
Peter Obi, during his meeting with former President Jonathan on Monday, relayed Jonathan’s message that “Nigeria cannot be turned into a one-party state.”
Sani’s admission that Kaduna is already a one-party state, stated proudly and without apology, confirms that the opposition’s warnings are not hypothetical projections but descriptions of a reality that at least one APC governor is willing to acknowledge and celebrate.
“When the opposition says they are creating a one-party state, APC says it is propaganda. Now their own governor has confirmed it with his own mouth. He did not deny it. He celebrated it. He said he has no apology. What more evidence does Nigeria need?” one widely circulated response stated.
Bayo Onanuga, the presidential adviser who led the visiting delegation, focused his response on the utilisation of subsidy removal funds rather than engaging with Sani’s one-party state declaration.
“The president has been taking the bullets for these economic decisions to better the economy of the country,” Onanuga stated.
“From what we have seen in Kaduna, this money has gone into development projects that are impacting the lives of ordinary citizens. From rural roads connecting farming communities to skills acquisition centres empowering youth, I will tell the president that Kaduna is a role model in the effective utilisation of the funds given to states,” Onanuga added.
The characterisation of Kaduna as “a role model” in the same visit where its governor boasted of eliminating all opposition captured the ruling party’s priorities in a way that many Nigerians found deeply troubling: development justifies dominance, results justify the absence of choice, and a state where the ruling party faces no opposition is worthy of emulation rather than concern.
At its core, Sani’s statement forces a question that Nigeria must confront: can a one-party state be acceptable regardless of what the ruling party delivers?
The governor’s argument, implicitly, is that the APC’s dominance in Kaduna is justified by results: improved security in Birnin Gwari, infrastructure development, economic activity, and federal support from a president who has “done more for the North than any leader.”
The counter-argument, articulated by the opposition at Ibadan, by democratic theorists for centuries, and now by thousands of outraged Nigerians on social media, is that democracy is defined not by the success of the ruling party but by the existence of real alternatives. A state where the ruling party faces no opposition is a state where accountability is impossible, where citizens cannot choose differently even if they want to, and where the ruling party’s narrative of success cannot be tested against competing visions.
As Governor Makinde stated in Ibadan: “Democracy is not defined by the success of one party. It is defined by the existence of real alternatives, by the ability of citizens to choose, and by the confidence that those choices matter. Once that disappears, what we have may still be called democracy, but it will no longer function as one.”
Governor Uba Sani has told Nigerians that Kaduna no longer has that function. He has no apology for it. And he believes the rest of the North will follow Kaduna’s example in 2027.
Nigerians have responded with a message of their own: the democracy that NADECO fought for, that Abiola died for, and that millions of Nigerians have defended through decades of struggle, was not fought for so that any governor, from any party, could stand before cameras and proudly declare the death of political competition in his state.
As one Nigerian stated, capturing the public mood in a single sentence: “NADECO did not die for this.”
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