Exclusive: Real Reasons Why APC Rejected Zamfara Governor Dauda Lawal

…Why PDP Members Are Abandoning Governor’s Party,

…Other Details Inclusive
By Fatima Bello

Fresh facts have emerged on why the All Progressives Congress (APC) outrightly rejected overtures from Governor Dauda Lawal of Zamfara State to join its ranks.

The governor, it was gathered, has been branded a “political liability” whose entry would “spell doom” for the party’s prospects in the North-West ahead of the 2027 elections.

This firm stance comes amid a torrent of defections from the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), with key lawmakers, ward leaders, and even a gubernatorial-backed candidate abandoning ship, citing the governor’s “woeful failures” in governance as the primary catalyst.

Sources close to the APC’s state and national leadership, speaking exclusively to Aljazirah on condition of anonymity, revealed that Governor Lawal’s repeated lobbying attempts – including a high-stakes meeting with President Bola Tinubu at the Aso Rock Villa earlier this week – were met with outright dismissal.

“The governor’s administration has presided over unprecedented insecurity, infrastructural decay, and economic stagnation,” one senior APC figure confided.

“Welcoming him would not only tarnish our image but also alienate our growing youth base, who see him as the architect of Zamfara’s woes.”

The APC’s rejection is rooted in several damning indictments against Lawal’s two-year tenure.

First, his alleged ties to controversial figures from past administrations, including former Petroleum Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke and ex-Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele, have raised red flags about potential corruption probes.

Insiders claim Lawal’s defection bid is less about ideology and more about seeking a “soft landing” from federal anti-graft agencies like the EFCC and ICPC, which have reportedly been sniffing around his financial dealings.

Second, the governor’s handling of the state’s security crisis – a perennial albatross in banditry-plagued Zamfara – has been lambasted as politicized incompetence.

Despite campaign promises to eradicate banditry “within two months,” attacks have intensified, with military withdrawals from key bases attributed to Abuja’s distrust of his administration.

The governor has been accused of “hypocritically” blaming federal forces while his failures drive PDP defections, while “members are fleeing a party under a leader who lacks direction.”

Compounding these issues is Lawal’s alleged misuse of state funds on political vendettas, including a reported ₦4 billion sunk into a failed by-election bid for a PDP candidate who promptly defected to the APC afterward.

The governor has been slammed for his “reckless spending on futile pursuits,” which exemplifies the “incompetence” defining his rule.

Several groups had cautioned that Lawal’s record – marked by unpaid salaries, institutional breakdowns, and a surge in banditry – makes him “unfit for the ruling party’s fold.”

As the APC fortifies its barriers, the PDP in Zamfara is hemorrhaging members at an alarming rate, with defections accelerating over the past fortnight.

The most high-profile exit came on Tuesday when Hon. Maharazu Salisu, representing Maradun II Constituency in the Zamfara State House of Assembly, led a mass crossover to the APC at the party’s Gusau secretariat.

Flanked by five PDP ward chairmen – including Ahmad Lawal of Gidan Goga Ward, Sanusi Ahmad Liman of Tsibiri Ward, and Lawal Mohammed of Kaya Ward – Salisu lambasted Lawal for “abandoning loyalists” and failing to deliver on core pledges like security and constituency projects.

“My constituents summoned me; they’ve seen no dividends of democracy under this PDP,” Salisu declared, vowing that his move signals the “end of Lawal’s grip on the assembly.”

This follows a pattern of betrayals: Last week, former PDP by-election candidate Muhammad Lawal Kuryar Madaro – whom sources say Lawal bankrolled with billions – defected, blaming “rising insecurity and leadership drift.”

Earlier, Hon. Maharazu Faru (Maradun II) cited “neglect and unfulfilled promises” in his jump to the APC, accompanied by hundreds of supporters.

Reports now swirl of seven more PDP lawmakers poised to follow, potentially slashing Lawal’s assembly allies to just four – a precarious minority that could trigger impeachment proceedings.

APC State Chairman Hon. Tukur Danfulani Maikatako hailed the influx as proof that “Zamfara will soon be entirely APC,” crediting ex-governors Bello Matawalle and Abdulaziz Yari for “shrinking the PDP through superior vision.”

Governor Lawal, who jetted to Abuja post-defections for crisis talks with Tinubu, has downplayed the turmoil.

Yet, insiders paint a grimmer picture: Late-night huddles with wavering lawmakers reveal a governor in “panic mode,” desperate to stem the bleed before it erodes his re-election bid.

Other details emerging from our probe paint a state on the brink. The APC’s assembly dominance (now 13 seats to PDP’s 11) has stalled Lawal’s ₦545 billion 2025 budget, deemed “illegal” for procedural lapses amid suspended members.

Gbajabiamila Calls on Skilled Nigerians to Join Afretrade, a Global Digital Talent Platform

By Ifeoma Ikem

The Managing Director of Afretrade, Mr. Jubril Gbajabiamila, has called on talented individuals across Nigeria and Africa to join Afretrade, a digital platform designed to connect skilled professionals with clients and businesses across the world.

Gbajabiamila made the call while exhibiting at the Africast 2025 Conference held in Lagos, where he emphasized the need for Africa’s skilled workforce to take advantage of global opportunities in the digital economy.

He explained that the platform was created to bridge the gap between local talent and international demand for services such as digital marketing, software development, and artificial intelligence (AI).

According to him, Afretrade was developed and built in Nigeria through collaboration with a partner based in the United States, with the vision of creating what he described as “a Microsoft in Nigeria.”

“It is a platform actually built in Nigeria by Nigerians for the world to see how talented we are,” he said. “When you see the three Ts — Trade, Talent, and Training — they define what Afretrade stands for.”

Gbajabiamila explained that the first ‘T’, Trade, represents buying and selling, while Talent stands for the creativity and expertise of Nigerians who have a lot to offer the global market.

He noted that despite the abundance of skilled professionals in Nigeria, many have not had a global platform to showcase their abilities, unlike countries such as India and other Southeast Asian nations, whose professionals dominate the outsourcing market.

“For instance, many companies in America and Europe outsource their service centers to India. Nigeria also has talented people, but most of our service centers remain localized,” he said.

The Afretrade platform, according to him, was designed to expand access and visibility for Nigerian professionals by creating a verified, trusted, and global network for service providers and clients.

He explained that users can register on the platform, create a profile, and undergo verification through BVN, National ID, and certification checks to ensure authenticity and trustworthiness.

“The truth is, talent alone is not enough to grow,” he noted. “You need visibility, trust, and connection to find new clients locally and globally. Afretrade provides that bridge.”
Gbajabiamila added that manufacturers, producers, artisans, and skilled workers can also use the platform to showcase their products and services to both local and international markets.

He revealed that Afretrade currently operates teams in France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, while also hosting programs and exhibitions in different countries to promote African talent.

The Afretrade boss further disclosed that the platform also provides training and certification opportunities for professionals seeking to upgrade their skills.

“For example, if you want to become a UI/UX designer or a Unix developer, Afretrade offers onboarding and training to help you gain those skills and get certified,” he explained.
Gbajabiamila also highlighted the platform’s usefulness for Nigerians in the diaspora seeking to connect with trusted professionals or businesses in Nigeria, such as accountants or legal consultants, through verified engagements.

*Dauda Lawal: Between Leadership Award and Zamfara Reality

By Silas Ajogwu

There are moments when public honours become mirrors that doesn’t reflect virtue but to magnify dissonance. Governor Dauda Lawal’s recent acclamation as “Governor of the Year” by Leadership newspapers should, in a sane political economy, invite sober celebration only if the facts on the ground corroborate the plaudits. But in Zamfara, where villages are sacked, whole communities flee in fear, educational system keep declining in the wake of violence, and mass abductions have become grim headlines, the award reads less like recognition than a rhetorical conjuring trick. The editorial board that printed the accolade owes Nigerians an apology for easily being misled: how did the red ink miss the echoes of wailings and the river of bloods that flow through Zamfara today?

Let us begin with the unassailable facts. Over the past months, and indeed years, Zamfara has been one of the epicentres of Nigeria’s northwestern security catastrophe. Evidently, reports from reputable international media and rights groups have documented catastrophic violence like brutal mass killings in mining towns, the abduction of scores of villagers in single operations, and the sacking of hundreds of communities that have produced waves of internally displaced persons. Amnesty International and Reuters, among others, have catalogued attacks that leave behind corpses, razed homes, and scarred families. These are not the figments of partisan reportage; they are verifiable tragedies with names, dates, and grieving families.

If an award is to have any moral weight, it must answer this simple ledger: have lives been preserved under your watch, or have they been squandered? Has the governor provided a credible roadmap toward safety, or has he delivered platitudes and photo-opportunities while bandits seize towns and terrorize children? The empirical answer, as chronicled by independent observers is damning. Recent attacks in Zamfara have included mass abductions. One reported incident alone saw over 100 people taken, and repeated massacres in villages where citizens were slaughtered as they laboured. An outbreak of cholera in Bukkuyum and the deaths recorded there are not incidental; they are symptomatic of collapsed access to health, water, and security which are the very public goods that should mark competent stewardship of a state. Unfortunately, the massive federal allocation are only seen in the frivolous spending and luxurious purchase made by the governor and his cabinets, but not reflective in the lives of Zamfarans.

And yet, on glossy pages and curated websites, a different narrative is being sold: that a governor whose tenure coincides with such human carnage deserves a laurel. This is not merely a question of taste; it is an ethical indictment of how awards are dispensed and of what our public culture has become. When honour is decoupled from measurable public welfare and instead telescoped into ceremony, we impoverish language itself. Words like “leadership” and “transformational” warp into euphemisms for impunity. If an editorial board is prepared to bless a record marred by abandoned communities, the public is entitled to ask whether the accolade Is commensurate with performance or contaminated by other influences. Indeed, social scepticism is not cynicism; it is a civic alarm that sounds when lived reality diverges dramatically from celebratory headlines.

It Is tempting and rhetorically effective to leap to causation: Yes! awards are being bought; editorial independence is for sale; governors are laundering reputations with chequebooks. But responsible criticism requires discipline. In the absence of a smoking gun that proves pay-for-play in this specific case, the argument must rest on demonstrable incongruity and pattern. Across Nigeria, there have been recurring controversies where awards and honours were criticized for being influenced by patronage, and commentators have warned that some prizes have become transactional. What we can say with confidence is this: where public life is ravaged by banditry and humanitarian collapse, the optics of bestowing “Governor of the Year” warrants interrogation, not because the act of awarding is per se illegitimate, but because the moral calculus of governance demands that survival and dignity must come before plaudits.

The human cost of misgovernance is not an abstraction. Mothers in Zamfara and cradle children who have lost fathers to kidnappers; entire marketplaces lie empty because people fear to travel; mothers with infants cannot reach clinics because roads are controlled by armed men on motorcycles. These daily indignities corrode social trust and exact stealthy, intergenerational harm. When an editorial desk fails to look these mothers in the face and instead crowns their governor, the message sent is corrosive: that rhetoric can substitute for remedy, and that spectacle can displace sorrow. The moral outrage that follows is neither theatrical nor petty; it is a legitimate expression of popular grief and righteous indignation of personal experience.

However, it is important to consider the broader data of how human-rights organizations and investigative outlets have documented thousands killed, villages burnt down, and how hundreds of thousands were displaced across Zamfara State. These can only be a result of structural failures; failures of intelligence, of community protection, of preventive policing, and of governance allocation. If a governor’s tenure coincides with such systemic collapse, editorial boards should, at minimum, scrutinize if the state apparatus has been deployed, how it has been deployed to protect citizens. Obviously, Dauda Lawal’s administration has not strengthened local security architecture, ensured functioning clinics and safe water points, and has not exercised fiscal courage to fund durable counter-insurgency measures.

When the governor and his apologists insist on celebrating awards, they must be asked to explain, with documents and demonstrable outcomes, why the lives of their citizens were not the primary metric considered. What specific policies, funded projects, or security innovations justify a Governor of the Year title? Are there transparent records showing reductions in incidents, successful rescue operations, improved infrastructure, rehabilitated health centres, or secure corridors that allow commerce to resume? Or is the award a prophylactic meant to sanitize a political brand while the rot continues underneath? The difference between governance and marketing is precisely this: the former is accountable to the ledger of life; the latter is answerable only to visibility.

We must also confront the rhetorical posture that seeks to delegitimise popular critique by branding it as mere “political attacks.” When mothers cries for their missing children, when communities cannot till fields for fear of ambush, when clinics close because health workers cannot commute, the critiques that arise are not partisan truculence; they are the anguished responses of citizens demanding protection. To dismiss these legitimate cries as envy or opposition theatre is to perpetrate a moral inversion: those who ask for security are branded as troublemakers while those who preside over their vulnerability are lauded. If the editorial pages are to retain moral authority, they must resist becoming instruments for image laundering.

What, then, should be the civic response? First, Newspapers must demand transparency before publication. Newspapers that confer high honours must publish their criteria, and the evidentiary basis for their choices. If “Governor of the Year” is to mean anything beyond a headline, it must be backed by transparent metrics: measurable improvements in healthcare access, documented reductions in violence, convincingly audited security spending, and demonstrable community rehabilitation. Second, insist on investigative curiosity: it is important for civil society and independent media to probe the governance ledger, which are budgets, procurement processes, and security strategies. Third, let the people of Zamfara judge for themselves: community hearings, testimony from survivors, and on-the-ground reportage should be the sources that shape public memory, not paid-for adverts or celebratory galas.

Finally, there is a moral plea. Awards are supposed to confer encouragement on those who have alleviated suffering, not camouflage those who have presided over it. If Governors wish to be celebrated, let them first clear a simple threshold: make their states safer, make clinics work, make schools open, restore markets, and stop the nightly toll of abductions and killings. Let them invite independent monitors to verify progress. Let their citizens sleep without fear. Only then will a “Governor of the Year” title be more than a headline: it will be a justly earned tribute.

To the editorial board that printed the accolade, and to every Nigerian watching: do not let ceremony smother scrutiny. To the shameless governor who accepted it: Honor must be tethered to the dignity of life. In Zamfara today, that dignity is endangered; mothers weep while trumpets sound. If honour is to mean anything at all, let it begin by answering the children’s cries and the empty chairs at family tables. Let the paychecks of Civil servants bring smiles to their faces. Until then, a paper’s gold foil Is a poor balm for the blood and the silence.

Ajogwu is a security expert writing from Kaduna.