Yilwatda Challenges ADC: Will You Halt Road Projects Because You Want To Return Subsidy?

The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Nentawe Yilwatda, has questioned how the opposition would finance a proposed return to fuel subsidy while sustaining ongoing infrastructure and development projects across Northern Nigeria.

Yilwatda made the remarks in Abuja while receiving former African Democratic Congress (ADC) candidates from northern states who had withdrawn from various State House of Assembly contests and defected to the APC.

According to Bush Radio Academy, the APC chairman dismissed claims that President Bola Tinubu’s administration had neglected the North, pointing to several federal road projects currently under construction across the region.

Yilwatda cited the Abuja-Kano and Kano-Maiduguri highways, alongside other projects linking areas such as Jos and Akwanga, Sokoto and Kebbi, Kano and Daura, as well as Zaria and Danja.

Reacting to opposition proposals to restore fuel subsidy, he questioned whether funding such a policy would require the government to halt ongoing road construction and other development programmes.

He also argued that the removal of subsidy had provided states with additional resources, while highlighting government initiatives involving gas development, fertiliser supply, compressed natural gas and student loans.

The APC chairman further rejected claims that the Tinubu administration had sidelined the North, arguing that the number of ongoing federal projects in the region demonstrated continued government investment.

Yilwatda also warned that a return to the former subsidy arrangement could affect government funding for infrastructure and other programmes. His comments come amid an increasingly prominent debate ahead of the 2027 general elections over fuel subsidy policy and the economic reforms introduced by the Tinubu administration.

He subsequently urged the former ADC members and APC supporters to strengthen the party’s grassroots structures and mobilise voters ahead of the 2027 elections.