KEBBI 2027: ADC Unravelling As An Avoidable Calamity

By Aliyu Usman

Political opposition, especially the more beneficial aspects which involve checking the incumbent and demanding accountability on behalf of the people, is good and should be welcomed by all well-meaning individuals. But there is a caveat; opposition can only turn beneficial if the questions raised are based on facts or verifiable information, not conjectures or simply opposition for opposition sake.

The ADC in Kebbi State, by its style of opposition, has shown clearly that there's is the self-serving kind; the kind that fronts wild claims where verifiable questions should feature, the kind that packages half-truths and uses them to gaslight just to score cheap political points, the kind that elevates sensationalism and paints it with the brush of the holy grail to push a political rhetoric that, frankly, has hurt it more than the incumbent it is targeting.

The recent instalment in what is becoming the ADC's customary shot in the dark is the party's attempt to mislead Kebbi people over what records call a Memorandum of Understanding between the state government and MSM for the development of a cement plant.

To everyone but the ADC, the facts are straightforward. On March 7, 2025, the Kebbi State Government and MSM signed an MoU for a modern cement plant. MSM's own project page still describes the agreement as an MoU, puts the first phase at three million tonnes per annum and about $600 million, and says the project is at the stage of “MoU signed; feasibility ahead.” The company's plan is for a four-cluster programme targeting 12 million tonnes per annum, with 45,000 direct and indirect jobs projected. Global Cement similarly described the arrangement as an MoU and reported that the first phase was expected to reach production around early 2027.

So, when the ADC asks, “Where is the cement plant you signed for?”, there is a question underneath the political theatre: what progress has been made since the MoU? Has feasibility been completed? What is the engineering and financing position? What milestones have been achieved? In the face of it, these are questions Kebbi people deserve answers to.

But, the back end, turning an MoU into a commissioned factory that has disappeared is not accountability. It is a distortion of the record, plain and simple. The project was never presented in publicly available documents as a completed government-owned factory. It was a private investment commitment, with the state expected principally to facilitate an enabling environment. The investor's records say feasibility, front-end engineering design and EPC selection remain part of the development process.

It is very important to make this distinction because opposition politics should not require the public to suspend common sense. If the ADC wants to interrogate the project, it should interrogate the commitment: what has MSM done, what has the state done, what remains outstanding and what are the consequences of failure by either side? That would be serious opposition. That would be accountability.

Instead, the ADC has made the absence of commercial production barely eighteen months after the MoU the centre of its argument, even though contemporary industry reporting had placed the first phase's production target around early 2027. It therefore asks the public to treat an investment pipeline as though it were a state construction project.

The ADC's recent posturing about accountability is very interesting because, this is a party that has fielded as its gubernatorial candidate someone whose battles with anti-graft agencies are already public knowledge; someone who has been found to have acquired so many properties with income whose sources he and his family could not satisfactorily explain.

For context, let me give a brief rundown of what the ADC's guber candidate represents in the eye of right thinking members of the society and what activities wore him that unenviable regalia. In July 2026, just a few months ago, the Federal High Court in Abuja, ordered the final forfeiture of 48 properties linked to Malami, members of his family and associated companies after EFCC proceedings. 

The court held that the respondents failed to rebut the reasonable suspicion that the properties were acquired through unlawful activities including abuse of office for personal enrichment. Nine other properties were not forfeited because the court found the evidence against them insufficient. This is not a criminal conviction, and it should not be presented as one; but it is a serious judicial finding concerning assets associated with a former Attorney-General.

The International Chamber of Commerce arbitration award on the Mambilla dispute, recently confirmed what the Nigerian courts have told Nigerians in July, and this has made political conversation around Malami becomes more difficult for the ADC to manage. The ICC tribunal did not only reject Sunrise Power's claims against Nigeria and found that settlement agreements involving the company were not binding on Nigeria because they lacked presidential approval; the ICC more seriously, concluded that a corrupt deal had been reached between Malami and Sunrise promoter Leno Adesanya. It was based on this fact, that the tribunal averred rendered the purported settlement agreement and its addendum products of corruption and unenforceable.

The tribunal also found that Malami repeatedly sought presidential approval despite Buhari's rejection, and that he failed to provide the former president with correct information about the settlement. It found that Malami and Adesanya maintained direct contact even while formally on opposing sides, and concluded that Malami had acted against Nigeria's interest and was motivated by other incentives. These are findings of an international arbitral tribunal, not allegations invented by the Kebbi State Government.

One consequential issue concerned the addendum signed in March 2020. The original settlement contemplated a $200 million payment. The addendum introduced another $200 million default provision, potentially raising Nigeria's exposure to $400 million. The tribunal found that the agreements were unenforceable because they lacked presidential approval and were products of corruption and contrary to Nigerian public policy. It rejected Sunrise's claim for the $400 million and ordered the company and its promoter to reimburse Nigeria about $11.8 million in legal fees.

There are other arbitration matters from Malami's tenure, including P&ID and Ajaokuta. Their rulings do not clearly rope him in as having worked against Nigeria. But, looking at the outcome of the Mambilla tribunal, it won't be too hard to imagine that those arbitrations may possibly have lined the man's pockets, and could be the possible source of his unexplained wealth. Consequently, alongside the Mambilla findings, questions surrounding Malami's record cannot simply be dismissed as political persecution.

And this is where the ADC's accountability campaign becomes an avoidable calamity. The party can ask the ICPC about Kebbi, ask about every naira spent and challenge every project. But accountability cannot be a one-way street, and opposition cannot mean demanding a standard from the incumbent that it refuses to apply to its own candidate.

The irony is difficult to miss. When the ADC wrote to the ICPC, it presented request as a public-interest exercise; yet, almost simultaneously, an international tribunal was delivering a damaging assessment connected to the record of the very man carrying its governorship ticket. Rather address these damaging allegations, the ADC is now trying to deflect attention by fishing for, and misrepresenting facts just to avoid accountability.

If ADC truly believes it is in the gubernatorial race in Kebbi in the interest of the people, then it must understand that credibility will not be built by sensational claims about an MoU, nor by pretending that accountability begins and ends with the incumbent. It will be built by subjecting everyone, including its own candidate, to the same standard.

For now, the cement plant question has exposed a weakness in the ADC's approach: a legitimate question wrapped in an inaccurate premise. The Malami record, meanwhile, has become considerably more complicated following the July forfeiture judgment and the September ICC award.

Kebbi people deserve better than politics built around selective outrage. They deserve opposition that asks questions, but also answers questions. They deserve government that explains its commitments, investors that honour theirs, and political parties that understand that accountability is not a weapon to be pointed at opponents. It is a mirror, and sooner or later, every political actor must look into it.

Aliyu writes from Birnin Kebbi