The National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress, Professor Nentawe Yilwatda, has warned that any return of fuel subsidy would cripple Northern Nigeria, saying it would halt road, gas and fertiliser projects and push many northerners back into poverty.

Yilwatda spoke on Monday at the party’s National Secretariat in Abuja while receiving a group of African Democratic Congress candidates for State Houses of Assembly.

The candidates, drawn from Zamfara, Plateau, Taraba and Jigawa states, withdrew from the race and defected to the APC ahead of the 2027 general elections.

The delegation was led by Princess Aslam Aliyu, also known as Gimbiyar Kauran Namoda, from Zamfara State. Hon. Mohammed Hassan, an ADC candidate from Zamfara, spoke on behalf of the group and said they were joining the APC for a bigger purpose.

She said they were convinced that President Bola Tinubu remains the right candidate to lead the country, and that they left the ADC because of their belief in his administration and the Renewed Hope Agenda. They said they would work for his second term.

Yilwatda said the party chose to receive the defectors at the national secretariat in recognition of the sacrifices they had made. He noted that they had resigned from the ADC at the ward level and submitted their resignation letters, describing this as “the first step”. The second step, he said, is for them to return to their wards and register as APC members. He urged them to begin grassroots mobilisation, adding that all elections are won at the polling units.

He also assured them that their contributions would be recognised within the party and that he would inform the President of their decision.

The APC chairman rejected claims by the ADC, made on Hausa-language radio programmes, that the President neglects the North. He listed ongoing road projects across the region, including sections of the Abuja-Kano-Maiduguri corridor, Jos-Akwanga, Kwara-Niger, Sokoto-Kebbi, Laila-Sokoto and Kano-Daura roads. He asked where the North they were talking about was, saying the party is part of the North.

Defending the administration’s economic reforms, particularly the removal of fuel subsidy, Yilwatda questioned whether a return to the old subsidy regime would mean stopping road construction, gas-related investments and programmes such as the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, NELFUND.

He argued that economic challenges should be tackled through reforms and development rather than policies that, in his view, contributed to fiscal pressure on governments.

The defection comes days after another ADC figure, Tonye Ibraye, left the party on September 24, citing a prolonged leadership dispute that he said threatens its 2027 election plans.