The year 2023 delivered a seismic shock to this entrenched order. In a result that resonated across Nigeria’s political landscape, Dauda Lawal of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) secured the governorship, defeating the APC candidate by a staggering margin of nearly 400,000 votes. This victory was monumental, marking the first time in over two decades that a candidate from outside the established ruling structure had captured Zamfara. The message from the electorate was deafening in its clarity. It was a wholesale rejection of the status quo, a cry from a population hungry for better governance, and a decisive vote against a political machine that had long taken their support for granted. Young men and women, students, civil servants, and the educated elite—demographics often overlooked—turned out to signal that their patience had expired.
Yet, the political interpretation of this warning within the halls of the ousted party appears to have been one of consolidation, not reform. Instead of introspection and renewal, the response has been to reinforce the same faces, the same structures, and the same backroom arrangements that led to the defeat. The brief interlude of Bello Matawalle, who initially won through a court judgment in the 2023 cycle before being unseated by Lawal, is often cited as a symptom of this fluid defection politics, where allegiances shift but the playbook remains unchanged. Defenders of the old guard point to tangible projects like road construction and the Gusau airport as evidence of development. While these are real, they are not the full picture, and they do not address the core crises gripping the state.
The lived reality for the people of Zamfara is defined by a daily struggle that infrastructure alone cannot solve. Paramount is the urgent need to end the pervasive insecurity that has plagued communities, disrupted livelihoods, and sown fear. Farmers, who should be the pride of the state, require sustained support and protection to feed the nation and themselves. Students yearn for educational systems that offer hope, while young people desperately seek employment opportunities that are currently mere mirages. Civil servants continue to agitate for their basic entitlements: the full implementation of the minimum wage, timely promotions, annual increments, and the dignity that comes with fulfilled promises. These are not the manufactured complaints of political opponents; they are the authentic, pressing demands of a populace that has waited too long for governance to translate into tangible improvement in their lives.
The health of any democracy hinges on a functional multi-party system that ensures accountability, inclusiveness, and a competitive incentive to perform. When one party perceives its hold on power as guaranteed, that vital incentive evaporates. The internal dynamics of the APC in Zamfara have ironically laid bare this decay. Within the party itself, members have loudly accused the leadership of manipulation, exclusion, and the hijacking of party machinery by entrenched interests. If a party cannot practice internal democracy within its own structures, the prospect of it delivering transparent and democratic governance to the entire state becomes a tragic paradox. The 2023 loss was a stark reference point, a lesson that seems to have gone unheeded, setting the stage for history to potentially repeat itself in the coming electoral cycles.
This analysis, however, is not a simplistic call to swap the dominance of one party for another. It is a fundamental argument for the birth of genuinely competitive politics in Zamfara. It envisions a state where the ruling party governs with the constant, sobering knowledge that failure will carry concrete electoral consequences. It demands an opposition strong enough, coherent enough, and visionary enough to present a credible alternative—not just as a protest vote, but as a government-in-waiting with specific, costed platforms. The governance approach required must be centred on demonstrable service delivery, unwavering accountability, and a relentless focus on core challenges: insecurity, unemployment, crippling poverty, inadequate housing, and an escalating cost of living. The people of Zamfara, the Zamfarawa, deserve to hear multiple competing visions for their future, not a single, tired monologue.
For this to happen, the energy that delivered the 2023 gubernatorial upset must be sustained and channeled into every level of the political process. The young voters, the educated cohort that powered that change, must turn up for state assembly and local elections with the same fervour they brought to the governorship contest. The political machine is most potent when voter turnout is low and predictable; it is most vulnerable when the people decide that every election is a referendum on their daily lives. The opposition parties, particularly the PDP now presenting a detailed blueprint that can break the cycle in the state.
Zamfara State is too large, too complex, too diverse, and too important to be administered as a personal fiefdom or a closed-shop project. It deserves governance that is accountable not to the narrow political interests of a few, but to the millions who call it home. It deserves leaders who earn power through the rigours of public scrutiny and genuine competition, not those who inherit it through pre-arranged consensus. It deserves a House of Assembly that robustly interrogates the executive branch, acting as a check on power rather than a mere rubber stamp. Ultimately, Zamfara yearns for leaders whose every ambition is laser-focused on lifting the state from its current trials—transforming it from a zone of insecurity to a safe haven, from a centre of unemployment to a hub of productivity, from a poverty-stricken region to a wealthy one, and from abandoned farmlands to a truly proud agricultural powerhouse.
For twenty-seven years, Zamfara has lived under the same political roof. That roof has long been leaking, failing to shelter its inhabitants from the storms of hardship. The repair required is not a minor patch job but a foundational renovation. The state is still waiting, patiently and impatiently, to be governed as if it truly belongs to every man, woman, and child who resides within its borders—not just to the machinery that has claimed it for a generation. The lessons of 2023 are clear; whether they will be heeded or ignored will define Zamfara’s trajectory for the next twenty-seven years.
