Kaduna State’s APC was plunged into an internal crisis on Tuesday after aggrieved aspirants from all three senatorial districts rejected the party’s primary election results, citing widespread irregularities that they say completely invalidated the exercise.
In what observers described as one of the most coordinated displays of intra-party dissent seen in the state in recent times, the aspirants, flanked by hundreds of visibly agitated supporters, staged a protest march shortly after holding a press conference at the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) secretariat in Kaduna, sending a clear and unmistakable signal to the party’s national leadership that the matter is far from settled.
The protest was led by none other than former Senator Danjuma La’ah, who once held the Kaduna South senatorial seat and remains a prominent voice in the state’s political landscape.
Joining him were Michael Ayuba Auta, a contestant for the Zone III senatorial seat, and Yusuf Bala Ikara from Zone I, together forming a united front that cut across all three senatorial districts of Kaduna North, Kaduna Central, and Kaduna South.
Also mentioned among the ranks of the disaffected were former Speaker of the Kaduna State House of Assembly, Yusuf Zailani, and Mohammed Mu’azu Makkadas, whose names carry considerable political weight in the state and whose involvement in the protest is likely to amplify its resonance beyond mere local grievance.
Speaking on behalf of the group, Senator La’ah delivered a pointed and detailed address to journalists, laying out a series of allegations that, if proven, would constitute significant breaches of both the Electoral Act and the APC’s own internal governing rules.
At the heart of their complaint is the allegation that the National Working Committee (NWC) of the APC had expressly approved a direct primary mode for the exercise, a system that would have allowed rank-and-file party members to vote directly at the ward level.
Instead, the aspirants allege, what was conducted was an illegal delegate system, effectively disenfranchising ordinary party members and concentrating the process in the hands of a select few.
“The exercise was marred by the absence of proper voting procedures, inadequate deployment of electoral officials, and non-compliance with the direct primary mode earlier approved by the party leadership,” the group stated in their address to the press.
They further alleged that electoral materials and party officials were conspicuously absent at several wards and polling centers across the senatorial districts, a logistical failure, they argue, that was anything but accidental and one that made a mockery of what should have been a transparent and inclusive exercise.
The aspirants did not stop at political arguments. In a move that suggests they are prepared to pursue the matter through formal channels, they cited specific legal provisions they claim were breached.
According to the group, the conduct of the primaries contravened Section 84 of the Electoral Act 2022, which governs the procedure for party primaries and the nomination of candidates, as well as Article 20 of the APC constitution, which relates to nomination procedures and the principle of internal democracy within the party.
These are not inconsequential claims. Section 84 of the Electoral Act 2022 has been at the center of several high-profile court disputes in Nigeria’s recent electoral history, and any credible evidence of non-compliance could open the door to legal challenges that may ultimately nullify the outcomes of the primaries.
While allegations were leveled across all three senatorial districts, the Kaduna South primary drew particular scrutiny from the aspirants. That exercise produced Senator Sunday Marshall Katung as the declared winner, an outcome the aggrieved group is challenging with considerable force.
They claim the Kaduna South primary was especially egregious in its lack of transparency, alleging that approved procedures were not followed and that the process, as conducted, could not produce what they termed “an acceptable candidate.” Senator Katung, for his part, had not publicly responded to the allegations at the time of filing this report.
The aspirants have made their demands unambiguous: they are calling on the APC’s National Working Committee to cancel the primaries conducted across all three Kaduna senatorial districts and order fresh direct primaries supervised by the party’s national leadership, a process they say must be transparent, credible, and strictly compliant with established guidelines.
Beyond the party’s internal structures, the group has also appealed to the APC’s appeal committee and, notably, to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to intervene and ensure that whatever process follows meets the minimum standards of electoral integrity.
The decision to call on INEC is significant. While party primaries are largely internal affairs, INEC has a statutory role in monitoring them and does not certify candidates whose emergence is tainted by non-compliance with the Electoral Act. An INEC intervention, if it materializes, could add a weighty external dimension to what is currently an intra-party dispute.
Perhaps the most politically loaded aspect of Tuesday’s protest was the group’s stark warning that failure by the APC leadership to address their grievances could threaten unity within the party ahead of the 2027 general elections—a warning that no serious political actor in Nigeria can afford to dismiss lightly.
Kaduna State, long regarded as a critical battleground in Nigeria’s northern political calculus, is a state the APC cannot afford to take for granted. A fractured party heading into 2027, with aggrieved heavyweights nursing unresolved wounds from botched primaries, could prove catastrophic for the party’s prospects not just in the senatorial races but potentially in other contests tied to the same electoral cycle.
The ball now appears to rest firmly in the court of the APC’s National Working Committee. The party leadership will need to weigh the political cost of dismissing the grievances of a broad and well-organized coalition of aspirants against the complications of annulling and re-conducting primaries in an entire state.
Political analysts watching the situation closely say the next few days will be crucial. If the NWC fails to respond swiftly and substantively, the aspirants have signaled through their invocation of legal provisions and their appeal to INEC that they are prepared to escalate beyond the boundaries of internal party resolution.
As it stands, the APC’s internal crisis in Kaduna is no longer a whisper behind closed doors. It has taken to the streets, and Nigeria is watching.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW
The APC’s senatorial primaries in Kaduna State have been thrown into serious dispute, with aspirants from all three senatorial districts, backed by credible political figures including former Senator Danjuma La’ah and former House Speaker Yusuf Zailani, alleging that the party abandoned its own approved direct primary system in favor of an illegal delegate process that shut out ordinary members and bred widespread irregularities.
If the APC’s National Working Committee fails to act decisively by cancelling and re-conducting the primaries transparently, the party risks heading into the 2027 general elections in Kaduna deeply divided, and a house divided, as history has repeatedly shown in Nigerian politics, rarely wins.
