As deputy governor of Zamfara State in 2002, he endorsed an Islamic judgement calling on Muslims to kill the fashion writer Isioma Daniel after she wrote that the Prophet Mohammed may have approved of the Miss World contest and perhaps would have wished to marry one of the beauty queens.
After the state governor Alhaji Mamuda Aliyu Shinkafi transferred his allegiance from the ANPP to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Sahabi Ya'u made it clear that he retained loyalty to Shinkafi, although he still remains technically a member of the ANPP.