2027: North-west ADC Guber Candidates Unveil Manifesto, Promise N110,000 Minimum Wage
• Vow to tackle insecurity, poverty, out-school-children
• Declare support for Atiku’s promise to restore petrol subsidy
Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja
The North-west African Democratic Congress (ADC) governorship candidates have signed a compact and unveiled a joint manifesto to tackle insecurity and poverty in the region following the commencement of political campaigns for the 2027 governorship and state Houses of Assembly election.
The candidates also declared their support for the presidential candidate of ADC, former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, over his plan to restore petrol subsidy.
They also promised to pay N110,000 minimum wage for workers in the region if elected.
The governorship candidates made the declaration on Wednesday in Abuja following the signing of the Northwest ADC Governorship Candidates’ Compact 2027–2031.
Speaking on behalf of the candidates, the former Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and the governorship candidate of Kebbi State, Abubakar Malami (SAN), said the signing of the compact was to reorient governance and deliver development
He stated: “We are by this gathering unfolding our regional covenant for security, development and shared prosperity.
“We, the governorship candidates of the African Democratic Congress for Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara States, having this day adopted and signed the North-west ADC Governorship Candidates’ Compact 2027–2031, address this declaration directly to the people of the North-west as our Regional Covenant for Security, Development and Shared Prosperity.”
Malami lamented that the region is crisis ridden, adding that over 16,000 lives have been lost on account of insecurity between June 2023 and August 2026, while more than 1,583 kidnapping incidents since January 2023 have taken over 10,000 people from their homes and farms.
He decried that tens of thousands of households have been displaced, and more than 533,000 hectares of farmland in Zamfara and Katsina alone now lie abandoned.
Malami stressed that the region also accounted for 45 per cent of Nigeria’s out-of-school children.
He added: “Insecurity has emptied our farms, and those empty farms have brought hunger, driven our children out of the classroom, and have denied them the education the region requires to dry up the recruitment pool for future banditry, kidnappings and all associated crimes.
“Our commitment is to reorient governance to respond effectively and efficiently to break this vicious cycle of crisis, and restore peace, security and normalcy to our region.
“Our states and local government areas have received over N8.33 trillion in federal allocations between June 2023 and August 2026, and yet these revenues have not translated into accessible transport, affordable food and healthcare, functioning schools, and improved living conditions for our people.”
Malami assured the people that individually and collectively, they would take deliberate measures to reverse this unacceptable reality and ensure that public resources deliver measurable improvements in the lives of our citizens.
He noted: “This is why we commit to reform with responsibility, relief with accountability, and growth our citizens can feel.”
Malami noted that the level of looting witnessed across the North-west under the current administrations is massive and unprecedented in the region.
According to him, “We hold that the APC-led administrations in this region have little or nothing to show for their stewardship, neither in the lives of our people, physical infrastructure nor the security of lives and property.
“Rather than progress, our people are more impoverished today than at any time in history. Sadly, the current APC governors live in obscene affluence, building new government houses, buying exotic cars, travelling by private jet and displaying an opulence that offends the sensibilities of the very citizens whose commonwealth they were entrusted to steward.
“We commit that our compact stands in direct opposition to this record and that our conduct in office will be measured against it.”
Malami emphasised that the removal of fuel subsidy by the APC-led Federal Government has pushed the masses of our zone into abject poverty.
He said households that had hitherto lived on the fringe of hardship now live in abject poverty, and the supposed gains claimed for the removal of subsidy have brought no positive impact to their daily lives.
Malami noted: “We, the ADC governorship candidates of the seven North-west states, hereby declare our total support for the promise made by the ADC presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, to restore the subsidy as one of the immediate steps to halt the further slide of our people into abject poverty.
“We commit that we will implement a minimum wage of N110,000 for workers across all seven states of the North-west when elected.
“We will not surrender the constitutional authority of our individual states, nor dissolve the distinct priorities of Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara.
“Each of us will remain answerable for our own budgets, procurement, civil service, state education and health systems, land administration, internally generated revenue, state agriculture and infrastructure within our borders.”
Malami, however, said that where the people’s problems cross their borders, they commit to govern together to resolve them.
“We will coordinate our security architecture. We will hold ourselves to common standards. We will pool investment where pooling multiplies impact. We will open cross-border trade, share data, build joint infrastructure and speak with one voice in advocacy for our region,” he said.
The former AGF assured the North-west that a technology-enabled surveillance and rapid-response network would be established in each of the 21 senatorial districts across all the seven states of the region.
He said they would deploy drones region-wide and establish a North-west Regional Security Coordination Centre to combine lawful aerial surveillance, community intelligence, emergency reporting and geospatial data into a single chain: surveillance, early warning, command and control, verification and rapid response by the security agencies constitutionally empowered to act.
Malami noted that they would also declare an emergency on education, secure full UBEC access, integrate Almajiri and Tsangaya children into formal schools, support girls’ school attendance, and build a credible system for teacher recruitment, continuous training and mopping up out-of-school children.
He stressed that they would ensure full access to the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF), revitalize primary health care centres, expand midwives, telemedicine and community health insurance deployment.
Malami stressed that they would also establish one specialist hospital in each senatorial district (21 region wide)
“We will cooperate where cooperation works better. We will preserve the constitutional authority and priorities of our states. We will plan before we promise. We will publish what we deliver. We will protect our citizens through reform. We will manage public resources responsibly. And we will submit our performance to independent public scrutiny,” he stated.
The candidates announced the establishment of a Central Coordination Committee chaired by Hon. Abdussamad Dasuki; a Technical Committee chaired by Maj. Gen. Aminu Bande (rtd.) and co-chaired by Prof. Sadiq Abubakar; and a Media and Strategic Communications Committee co-chaired by Salihu Tanko Yakasai.
Earlier, speaking on behalf of the North-west Governorship Strategy Group, Dasuki said the level of poverty and insecurity in the region had never been witnessed before.
He said the candidates have resolved to work together as a team to address the challenges facing the region.