The North risks a fresh rise in poverty and a reversal of ongoing development projects if President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is denied a second term in the 2027 general elections, National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Professor Nentawe Yilwatda, has warned.
Yilwatda said several interventions of the Tinubu administration, including road construction, student loans, compressed natural gas (CNG) initiatives and fertiliser-related measures, had particularly benefited the northern states.
The APC chairman spoke in Abuja while receiving a group of former members of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) led by Princess Aslam Aliyu who defected to the ruling party.
He argued that the region could not afford a return to the economic conditions he said prevailed before Tinubu assumed office.
He particularly noted the inability of state governments to meet salary and pension obligations.
Yilwatda also took aim at the proposal by the ADC presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, to restore fuel subsidy, questioning how such a policy would be funded without affecting ongoing government programmes.
According to him, the removal of subsidy had provided the federal government with resources to pursue projects and interventions across the country, including those targeted at the North.
“The same thing they keep on saying, you know, the outside radio stations tell us that they will return the subsidy. I keep on asking, how are they going to return the subsidy?” he said.
Yilwatda said restoring the subsidy would have implications for infrastructure spending, particularly road construction.
He also questioned whether programmes designed to reduce transportation costs and improve access to energy would continue under such an arrangement.
“You mean they will stop all these road constructions because they want to return the subsidy? Because there will be no money for this construction, all this road again,” he said.
He further linked the administration’s energy policies to agricultural production in the North.
He said the region needed the gas and fertiliser interventions being promoted by the federal government.
“That gas will go with fertiliser. And we in the north, we need those fertilisers. You mean they should stop it?” the APC chairman asked.
Yilwatda also highlighted CNG as one of the measures he said had helped reduce the burden of transportation on vulnerable Nigerians.
“The CNG, they will come with the gas. We make transportation easier for the vulnerable people. Should we stop it?” he asked.
On education, he said northern beneficiaries constituted a significant proportion of those accessing the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND).
He argued that abandoning the programme would have consequences for students unable to afford their fees.
“The beneficiaries of the student loan, most of them are from the north. We have more and more of them in this part of the country.
Credit to our Media Partner DailyTrust .
