Life In the Arena: The Political Odyssey of Senator Abdulaziz Yari

By Keem Abdul

In politics and public life, there are the thinkers (analysts, commentators, critics, etc) – and then, there are the actual ‘DOERS’. It was Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States, who made perhaps the most eloquent distinction between thinkers and doers, as far as public life is concerned:

‘It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the DOER of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Having served in both the executive and legislative chambers of government for the most part of the present democratic dispensation, Sen. (Dr.) Abdulaziz Yari can be said to have been there and done that. He was the 4th Governor of Zamfara State, serving from May 2011 to May 2019, before being elected to represent the Zamfara West Senatorial District in the country’s upper legislative chamber on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2023 general elections. An earlier victory in 2019 (also for a Senate seat) was reversed by the courts on a technicality. He assumed his position in the 10th Senate in June 2023.

Not one to rest on his laurels, Sen. Yari, upon entering the Red Chamber, contested for the Senate Presidency last June, eventually losing to Senator Godswill Akpabio. He is currently the Chairman, Senate Committee on Water Resources. In that capacity, and in his engagements with his colleagues over the past one year or so, he has not only demonstrated his loyalty to Sen. Akpabio (despite his initial sense of betrayal over the process that threw up the latter) but has aligned himself squarely with the Senate President’s legislative agenda.

Yari’s time as Governor of Zamfara State will be remembered as a time of challenges as well as opportunities – for him as well as for the people of the state. In that state, as in many other parts of the country, farmers and herdsmen were at each other’s throats, amid a general atmosphere of insecurity and banditry. Farmers had become desperate and herdsmen had become murderous. As a result, the economy was battered by factors from within and without. This cocktail of challenges required a leader with a phenomenal sense of responsibility, and the capacity to deliver on his mandate. That leader turned out to be Abdulaziz Yari.

And because these challenges transcended the borders of Zamfara State, the manner in which he handled them led to his election as the Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF). One of the first things Yari did as NGF Chairman was to work for synergy among his counterparts as he moved to reintegrate all the members from the opposition who had hitherto felt like fish out of water in the APC-dominated NGF.

Thanks to his even-handedness, he was able to ensure a level-playing field for all interests represented in the NGF in the areas of committee work, visitations and assignments, without prejudice to political party inclination. By most accounts, his leadership of the NGF succeeded in uniting the nation’s sub-national leaders – in the face of the highly polarized entity Nigeria had become, especially during the Buhari era.

Under him, also, the NGF evolved from just being a talk shop to a policy hub and clearing-house for ideas as far as the Governors’ engagements with local and international development partners were concerned. Known to be close to former President Muhammadu Buhari, he used that leverage to negotiate with the federal government for interventions on behalf of the states. An example of this is when he secured Buhari’s assent to the NGF’s demand for the refund of the Paris and London Clubs loan deductions.

Whether as Zamfara State Governor, Chairman of the NGF, or as a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Yari’s career – in the eyes of those who have worked with him in his various capacities – reflects a passion for results that dates back to his formative years.

Born on January 28, 1968 in the community of Talata Mafara in the then-North Western State of Nigeria (now Zamfara State), he attended the Talata Mafara Township Primary School before proceeding to Government Teacher’s College in Bakura, from which he graduated in 1984. He finished his tertiary education at the Sokoto Polytechnic, obtaining a certificate in 1994, as well as a Diploma in Secretarial Studies in 2004. He then attended Kebbi Polytechnic, where he bagged a Graduate Diploma in Public Administration in 2008.

Passionate about public affairs even during his school days, Yari began his political career as the Secretary of the defunct All People’s Party (APP, which later metamorphosed into the All Nigeria Peoples Party, (ANPP) serving until 2003, when he was elected Chairman of the party in Zamfara State. He came into national reckoning when he rose to the position of the ANPP’s National Financial Secretary, in which position he served till 2007. He was elected that year as a Member of the Federal House of Representatives, representing the Anka/Talata Mafara Federal Constituency of Zamfara State.

Four years later, in April 2011, he was elected Governor of Zamfara State on the ANPP’s platform, and re-elected in 2015 – this time on the platform of the All Progressives’ Congress (APC), after its formation as a merger of the ANPP, the ACN (Action Congress of Nigeria) and other parties.

As he settles down to his current legislative and oversight duties in the 10th Senate, the 56-year old Senator (Dr.) Yari, a veritable DOER, can look back with pride at a rewarding political career and its many accomplishments during which he has consistently enjoyed the confidence of his people through several dispensations, and to the challenges and opportunities of the future with his characteristic penchant for results.

Talking about future challenges, Sen. Yari’s penchant for positive outcomes, promptly delivered, is sorely needed in the leadership of the Nigerian nation today – but especially in the quest to re-order the APC’s fraught engagement with the populace.

As the party prepares to undergo a transition to new leadership in the coming days (with the imminent departure of its National Chairman, Alhaji Umar Abdullahi Ganduje) it is safe to say that Sen. Yari’s experience in government will stand him in good stead in a bid to pilot the affairs of the party in the post-Ganduje era. With a doer like him at the helm, it is easy to see the APC mustering the capacity to revamp its ideological brand, as well as revive the fervor that saw Nigerians usher it so rapturously into power in 2015.

It is a brand which, truth be told, now looks frayed at the edges after almost a decade in power at the centre. But if anyone can set that revival in motion, that person is definitely Sen. (Dr.) Abdulaziz Abubakar Yari.

*Keem Abdul, publisher and writer, hails from Lagos. He can be reached via +2348038795377 or Akeemabdul2023@gmail.com