Bashir, the son of former Governor Nasir El-Rufai, has blasted Governor Uba Sani, asserting that the Kaduna leader frequented the nation’s capital to sleep and left his duty unattended.

Mr El-Rufai Jr engaged Mr Sani in an intense spar of words following the latter’s outburst that he “sadly inherited” multibillion-naira debt from his predecessor, an enormous deficit he claims made salary payments to state workers daunting.

“Despite the huge debt burden of $587 million, N85 billion, and 115 contractual liabilities sadly inherited from the previous administration, we remain resolute in steering Kaduna State towards progress and sustainable development,” the governor said at a town hall meeting in Kaduna on Saturday.

In response, Bashir flayed Mr Sani, claiming he was only masking his incompetence by blaming the previous administration. Mr El-Rufai Jr. claimed the Kaduna governor passed the time by “always sleeping in Abuja” and that his aides were incapable of picking up the slack because their appointments were made on the basis of “foolish” political affiliations rather than competence.

“From a governor that is always sleeping in Abuja to a litany of incompetent aides that were only rewarded for foolish political reasons,” Mr El-Rufai Jr wrote on his X account Saturday afternoon.

“These guys have realised that they are wholly incompetent, and the only way to mask the nonsense is to deflect.”

While more than 200 school children got kidnapped in Kuriga village in Kaduna State earlier this month, Mr Sani junketed to Lagos to join Vice President Kashim Shettima in presenting the Obafemi Awolowo Prize for Leadership to Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank (AfDB).

In a bloodbath where the Nigerian Army inadvertently bombed 126 civilians in Tundun Biri village in Igabi local government last December, Mr Sani lingered in Dubai even though President Bola Tinubu, whom he accompanied to the COP 28 climate summit, had returned to Nigeria.