From Kenneth Udeh, Abuja
Senator Yahaya Abubakar Abdullahi, CON, is a seasoned lawmaker and respected academic who currently represents Kebbi North Senatorial District in the 10th National Assembly.
The immediate former Senate Majority Leader and Associate Professor of Development Economics at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Senator Abdullahi has been a key player in Nigerian politics, serving under both the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC).
In this interview with Kenneth Udeh of The Sun Newspapers, the lawmaker, who chairs the Senate Committee on National Planning and Economic Affairs, explains his decision to leave and rejoin the ruling party.
He also offers an insightful analysis of the current political landscape, provides economic solutions to Nigeria’s challenges, and outlines what the APC must do to avoid defeat in the 2027 general elections.
He also speaks on Nigeria’s economic trajectory, President Tinubu’s borrowing plans, and what the government must do to bring meaningful development to the people.
You returned to the All Progressives Congress (APC) in May, having previously cited injustice by the former Kebbi State Governor, Senator Abubakar Atiku Bagudu. What informed your decision to rejoin the party despite those earlier grievances?
To be frank, the party itself didn’t deny me the ticket; it was the developments within the leadership at that time. The then-state governor, Senator Atiku Bagudu, unilaterally took over the party’s structures and removed anyone he felt wasn’t in conformity with his plans.
He changed the leadership without consulting any party members, leveraging his position as Chairman of the Progressives Governors Forum. At that time, the governors were effectively the owners of the party, and he used that advantage to install his own people.
This action was wrong, and we challenged it up to the national leadership, but they couldn’t do much. They organised what I would call a sham state congress where they claimed to have held an election of delegates, but in reality, there was none. They simply packed some people into a stadium and called them delegates. All of us who contested were given zero votes.
The fact is, we created this party. We merged all the different parties to form the APC, but I couldn’t attest to a single delegate being a known party member. It was a rogue affair organised and executed by the governor, and anyone not with him at the time found themselves out of the party.
After what happened, the person who was elected on the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) platform, Honourable Ibrahim Bawa Kamba, a member of the House of Representatives at the time, saw the situation and offered me his seat. He withdrew in my favour, and that’s how I became a member of the PDP.
So, my decision to leave the APC was simply to prove that I had the support of my people. I wanted to demonstrate that I was with the people, and whoever they put up to replace me in the APC, I was confident I could defeat them by a wide margin.
My move to the PDP was due to the prevailing circumstances at the time. I was the Senate Majority Leader, and for me to get zero votes in a primary election, even in my own local government, would be a history that future generations might not understand. I had to make a statement.
Ibrahim Bawa helped me. He saw what happened and was willing to leave his seat for me. We went into the election, defeated the APC candidate, and even fought up to the Supreme Court before our candidacy in the PDP was validated. My victory in the general election was an affirmation that my people are with me, regardless of the party, as long as I’m the candidate.
Now that the APC has chosen Nentawe Yilwatda as its National Chairman, what is your advice to the party leadership at this critical moment?
We were all part of the people who formed the APC from the very beginning. The challenges the party has faced have been related to the democratic governance of the party and a lack of respect for the voices at the grassroots.
We must respect our members’ voices and avoid any manipulation of the party’s democratic nature.
We should allow members to elect people who will represent them at all levels of the party. This is the only way for the followers to feel included and have a sense of belonging.
If the party decides that a state governor should determine every single person who votes in a party congress, it subverts the democratic structures from the polling booth to the ward, local government, state, and national levels.
This is the kind of leadership that President Muhammadu Buhari wanted, but it was subverted later on. No one loses anything by allowing democratic engagement to prevail. Of course, if you are unpopular, people might think that governors can make or unmake them, but in manipulating things, you are losing people.
The APC started as a progressive and highly democratic party. However, at the state level, the power of governors and other leaders virtually made a nonsense of it, to the point where we are now doing the same things we used to accuse the PDP of doing.
This is absolutely wrong. If we are not careful, we will end up like the PDP, which subverted all known democratic processes within its operations and ultimately lost all its elections.
Luckily, we now have President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who is a democrat and has fought for democracy for a very long time. We hope that he will work with like minds to ensure that the democratic traditions of the APC are restored.
With the emergence of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) aligning with some political heavyweights, including talks of Atiku and Obi teaming up, do you see a real threat to APC in 2027?
The ADC would not have existed if the APC had behaved democratically. They saw a window of opportunity through the general disenfranchisement of our party members.
The ADC is a contraption of office seekers capitalising on the breakdown of the APC’s democratic structures. There are many aggrieved APC members who feel excluded from the party’s democratic affairs.
The party leadership has been incapacitated and undemocratic, leading to the enforcement of people against the democratic choice of members.
In some places, party leaders at the ward and local government levels were installed as far back as 2014, and to retain their positions, they have to beg the governor and do whatever he says. Anyone who speaks the truth is labelled an “anti-governor” or a “saboteur” and is removed. This subversion of democratic choice is what gave rise to the ADC.
What must the APC do to remedy this situation and avert defeat in 2027?
My advice is to go back and allow members at the ward, local, state, and federal levels to make their own choices. If you allow members to elect people who they know will represent them well, the party will achieve its greatness.
When we formed the APC, we worked hard, going ward to ward to recruit people. It was those people who came and voted for their structures at all levels. It was real voting by delegates. When those elections were concluded, the party came together, regardless of which faction lost at various levels.
The structure of the PDP collapsed partly because some governors saw that the local party structures were not responsive. They knew that if they stayed in the PDP, they would have lost the elections regardless of their candidate.
The APC was a hurricane, particularly in the North. We must work now to make sure that the ADC does not win. We in the APC in the North have to sit down, put our acts together, and ensure that the people’s democratic choice is allowed to prevail.
After the 2015 general elections, the Northwest zone had only one PDP senator. The other 20 senators from the seven states were all APC. But after the 2023 elections, the APC couldn’t even get half of the senators from the Northwest.
Most of the new senators came through the PDP ticket. The reason for this is the weakened structure of the party and the lack of democratic treatment of those at the grassroots.
We in the APC should not be complacent. We shouldn’t rely on the fact that we have the president and some governors. All that means nothing. I can tell you that a lot of work needs to be done in the North. The idea that people will vote strictly along party lines is beginning to change.
The electorate is becoming more enlightened and strategic. Even in the villages, illiterate men and women now engage in “strategic voting.” They will vote for a presidential candidate from one party and refuse to vote for the governorship candidate from the same party. Political leaders should not take voters for granted.
The only way you can succeed is through inclusion, doing justice, and ensuring that people are given the opportunity to vote for the leaders of their choice without any form of imposition.
What are some quick economic fixes that the APC-led government can implement to improve the lives of non-partisan citizens before the next election?
Some analysts may present statistics showing that the economy is growing and inflation is coming down, but I can tell you the major problem: the people are getting poorer. The economy is supposed to work and serve the people.
The Central Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee rate is 27%, but banks charge as high as 30–35% on loans.
What business activity in this country can you do to get a return of 35% on your investment? It doesn’t make sense. There is a misalignment of fiscal and monetary policies. At a certain point, the government must intervene.
As an economist, I believe the government must sit down and balance its fiscal and monetary policies to allow businesses to thrive. We have to strategically isolate key real sectors of the economy like agriculture, industry, and manufacturing.
We must target our resources to these sectors, not just sit down and wait for the “market forces” to fix everything. The market itself is a creature of the state and must be regulated.
When you invest in specific industries and productive activities, you can release resources to those sectors and monitor them.
The government must be a part of the process, supervising the private sector at the initial stage of economic development. It is only when the private sector and industry have developed that the state can move back and let the market forces take over. You don’t just sit back and do nothing. There is no private sector in the world that was not started by the state.
Do you believe that if the President implements these fixes before the next election, it will improve his chances of re-election?
Yes! If you target specific industries and productive activities, get investors, and release resources to these sectors, and then monitor and make sure that, as a government, you are part and parcel of those industries that you are working on, it will make a difference. The market is not a person.
There is nowhere in the world where market forces alone built an economy. Everywhere in the world, including the United States, the economy became so strong that they were able to allow the market forces to prevail. When the US economy collapsed into recession in the 1920s, it was Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal that established regulations and brought the economy back up again.
President Tinubu initiated the creation of regional development commissions. In light of the scandals faced by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), including fund mismanagement and incomplete projects, do you believe these new commissions are necessary and will effectively drive development?
The regional development commissions should be organs of economic development, not welfarist bodies. My advice is for them to tap into the productive comparative advantages of the states and promote investment in the real sectors, be it agriculture, livestock, or manufacturing.
They should link up the states in such a way that they take advantage of each state’s endowment and bring them together to work as a unit.
This can be done by investing in the productive capacity of the different states and, at the same time, building the necessary infrastructure that connects them.
They should go for major infrastructural projects like railway connectivity, airports, and transportation warehousing, not small projects like building market stalls. This will link up all the regions economically, allowing each region to develop according to its endowment.
The state must be a part of this process. It must supervise the private sector at the initial level of economic development. It is only when the private sector and industry have developed that the state can move back and take the commanding heights of the economy.
Many public schools remain in deplorable condition, and the nation’s healthcare system continues to suffer from poor infrastructure. What, in your opinion, should be done to raise the standard of education and healthcare across the country?
The major cause is a lack of discipline and leadership. The bureaucracies in most of these institutions are completely broken down. The entire engine of governance has broken down, which is why we have issues with insecurity, poor hospitals, and other problems.
What can fix them, from my experience, is having sincere leaders, not predators. When you bring in predators, all they do is corner state resources for their pockets. The money you steal and use to deny people quality public services will never make you rich. We need sincere leaders at the local, state, and federal levels.
People are clamouring for the creation of new states, but are the ones we have now delivering the services they are supposed to? We should consolidate the states we have today and ensure they are led by knowledgeable and accountable leaders.
They should concentrate on three things: healthcare, education, and infrastructure. I don’t mean just flyovers; I mean infrastructure that connects economic markets, farms, and businesses. Once you do that, people will secure themselves, and all these insecurity issues will disappear.
What is your take on the Senate’s approval of President Bola Tinubu’s external borrowing plan of over $21 billion for 2025–2026?
The central principle is that with accountable, focused, and trustworthy leadership, it is cheaper to borrow someone else’s resources. When you take on debt, you must apply it in a way that generates wealth. If the wealth does not generate more wealth, then it is a cautionary debt.
We are currently using a large percentage of our revenue to service debts. While this has come down a bit, it still means these debts have accumulated and are generational. Some of these projects have a moratorium of about 5 to 10 years before you even start paying.
This means you are transferring it to the next generation, but if you don’t create value for that generation to use the debts to pay off and add value to what they are doing, you are enslaving them.
We must be extremely careful about what we borrow and how we use it. As a member of the Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Debts, I have said very clearly that we as Senators and members of the House of Representatives must be alive to our responsibilities.
We must provide oversight on every single project. The loans are not disbursed all at once; they come in tranches.
If we realise the government is not implementing the projects as planned, we can ask them to hold the other payments. So, it is our responsibility to monitor the implementation. If we fail to do so, we will be enemies of our own people. I have nothing against the debt, provided it creates value for the next generation to be able to repay.
