Malam Yahaya Abdulkarim was elected governor of Sokoto State, Nigeria between January 1992 and November 1993, during General Ibrahim Babangida's attempted transition to democracy.
After the return to democracy in 1999, he became a power in the Zamfara State branch of the People's Democratic Party (PDP), and served for a while in the cabinet of president Olusegun Obasanjo.