A former member of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Hon. Yekini Nabena, has taken a swipe at former Kano State Governor and ex-presidential candidate of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, over his recent comment on development and project distribution across the country.
Nabena, a former Acting National Publicity Secretary of the APC, in a statement on Tuesday, accused Kwankwaso of making inciting statements to provoke ethnic and regional tensions in the lead-up to the 2027 general elections.
Responding to Kwankwaso’s recent allegations that the federal government was favouring the South over the North in terms of infrastructural development, Nabena maintained that no amount of political pressure or sentiment would force President Bola Tinubu into negotiations with the former Kano governor.
“Such inciting comments will not force President Bola Tinubu into political negotiations with Kwankwaso,” Nabena stated.
He argued that the South must be allowed to complete an uninterrupted eight-year term, in the interest of fairness and equity.
“No ethnic, religious or regional sentiment played up by Kwankwaso against the Southern presidency can hold water. Southerners must have their eight-year uninterrupted run,” Nabena said.
Kwankwaso had recently criticised the federal government for what he described as lopsided development projects that allegedly favour the South while neglecting Northern infrastructure, particularly road networks.
He claimed that the South is receiving disproportionate attention in national development efforts.
In a rebuttal, Nabena accused Kwankwaso of playing “political merchant” ahead of 2027, just as he allegedly did in the 2019 and 2023 elections.
Nabena said, “The Kano voters now know who is using them for political business. Even the political gladiators now understand the tactics of political merchants.”
He further challenged Kwankwaso to travel by road through the South-South and compare the state of infrastructure in the oil-producing region, the country’s economic backbone, to that of the North.
“Is the North inferior or superior to the South after eight years of Northern leadership?. Which of the North’s resources was used to develop the South — gold, rice, or groundnut pyramids?,” he queried.
Nabena stressed that the North had held the presidency for eight years and questioned why the region remains underdeveloped despite being in power for that period.
He added that the era of using ethnic and religious sentiments to manipulate political outcomes is fast fading, and that Kwankwaso can no longer intimidate the South with Kano’s voting bloc.
Nabena said, “You cannot intimidate the South or anybody with Kano votes any longer. The era of playing religious or ethnic cards is far becoming unfashionable.”
