Kaduna State is the political hub of Northern Nigeria and the former capital from which the late Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, administered the defunct Northern Nigeria as premier.
The state continues to play a significant role in the politics of the North and of Nigeria in general, so interest in its internal politics spread far beyond its boundaries.
Kaduna in the millennium
The state is sharply divided along ethnic and religious lines. Since it became a state in 1967, Kaduna has had 20 governors, nine of them democratically elected while the others were soldiers.
Until the 2019 election, the state had been governed by an unwritten principle that when the governor is a Muslim, the deputy would be a Christian and vice-versa.
In 2019, Governor Nasir El-Rufai broke that tradition when he picked a Muslim woman who was his commissioner of health, Hadiza Balarabe, as his running mate.
2023, many candidates
The APC in Kaduna has managed to avoid…
