*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.

Don’t Move 2027 Polls To Nov 2026, NNPP Chieftain, Ajadi Warns National Assembly …….Says It’s Ploy To Hamper Adequate Preparations Of Political Stakeholders

A South West Chieftain of the New Nigeria Peoples Party, (NNPP), Ambassador Olufemi Ajadi Oguntoyinbo has called on the National Assembly not to move the 2027 general elections to 2026, saying do so will hamper adequate preparations for the election by various political parties, the intending candidates and the electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC).

It could be recalled that the National Assembly has proposed moving Nigeria’s next presidential and governorship elections to hold in November 2026 instead of the February/March 2027.

The move, contained in the Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill 2025, seeks to ensure that all election petitions are concluded before the May 29, 2027, handover date.

The draft amendment read, “Elections into the office of the President and Governor of a State shall be held not later than 185 days before the expiration of the term of office of the last holder of the office.

Chairman of the House Committee on Electoral Matters, Hon. Adebayo Balogun, explained that the move is designed to “ensure that all manner of election litigations are dispensed with before the swearing in of winners”.

However in a press statement on Thursday, Ajadi condemned the proposed shift of the election from 2027 to 2026.

He said the National Assembly should not put pressure on political parties, the intending candidates and the Independent National Electoral Commission, ( INEC) by rushing them into the election.

Ajadi who was the governorship candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party, (NNPP) in Ogun State during the 2023 general election reminded the National Assembly that election is a serious matter that requires adequate preparations by the INEC, the political parties and the candidates that will participate in the election.

He said the excuse for the shift of the election backward so that all election petitions should have been concluded before May 29, 2027 hand over date does not hold water.

Ajadi said it is the duty of the Judiciary and the petitioners not to delay the petitions, noting that the same reason was advanced leading to shift of the election to between February and March of election year.

He said the shift in the date of the election to 2026 will further weaken the political institutions and turned the country into early politics and less governance.

According to him, “I urge the National Assembly not to move the 2027 elections to 2026. Election is a serious and important issue for national development. We don’t need to rush the political parties, the intending candidates and the INEC into preparations.

“Election requires proper and adequate planning. This will take time. Political parties needs adequate time and finances to recruit candidates, while candidates in turn need to plan adequately.

“I think we can just appeal to the Judiciary to give priority to election petitions and ensure that they are dispense off on time. Moving general elections to 2026 will cripple governance almost immediately and this is not good for a country like Nigeria that is trying to fix its economy.

“We cannot be in a perpetual election period, governance is necessary for the country’s development. The National Assembly should be cautious of severe negative implications of bringing 2027 election forward to 2026”

GOVERNOR AIYEDATIWA SETS UP PANEL OF INQUIRY INTO IDOGUN COMMUNAL CRISIS.

Ondo State Governor, Dr. Lucky Orimisan Aiyedatiwa, has constituted a seven-man Administrative Panel of Inquiry to investigate the recent communal crisis in Idogun community, Ose Local Government Area of the state.

The move follows reports of violent clashes between loyalists of the Onidogun of Idogun and a section of the community, which disrupted peace and stability in the area.

According to a statement signed by the Honourable Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Alhaji Amidu Takuro, the panel is mandated to determine both the remote and immediate causes of the conflict, identify individuals and groups involved, and recommend appropriate measures to prevent a recurrence.

The panel has Barrister Idowu Mafimisebi as the Chairman, Chief Gbenga Atiba, Mrs. Nike Ogunsola, Pastor Bukola Joseph Ojumu, Mr. Daramola Shola, a representative of the Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, and Mr. Oladele Adesanmi as members, and Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, will serve as the Secretary.

Governor Aiyedatiwa charged the members to discharge their duties with diligence, fairness, and integrity, emphasizing the importance of restoring lasting peace to Idogun. He also urged residents of the community to cooperate fully with the panel and maintain peace while the inquiry is ongoing.

The panel is expected to submit its report within six weeks.