Governor Dauda Lawal of Zamfara State has offered a blunt and eye-opening assessment of the immense challenges he faced upon taking office, painting a picture of a state that had been pushed to the very brink of collapse. The banker-turned-politician described inheriting a “dysfunctional” system where the treasury was virtually empty, containing a mere N4 million a figure so low it has left many Nigerians in disbelief.
The Governor recounted how he met a state buried under ten years of negative headlines, defined by relentless killings and systemic neglect. The situation was so dire that even with a minimum wage of just N7,000 at the time, the previous administration had failed to pay workers for four months. Public utilities had completely halted; the state capital, Gusau, had gone five months without a drop of running water because there was no money for treatment chemicals or diesel to power the pumps. Even the government house was in darkness, disconnected from the grid due to unpaid bills.
Lawal noted that the decay extended deep into the social fabric. Students had been barred from writing WAEC and NECO exams for two years due to unpaid debts, and those on international scholarships in countries like India and Cyprus were abandoned. In a move that underscored the level of institutional rot, the Governor revealed that his predecessor left with all official vehicles, forcing Lawal to use his personal cars to run the state for the first six months, often funding government operations from his own pocket.
Despite this grim starting point, the narrative in Zamfara is beginning to shift. The state’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) has seen a miraculous jump from a meager N90 million monthly to over N5 billion in just 30 months. Remarkably, the Governor achieved this without borrowing a single kobo. He attributed this success to aggressive “leakage plugging” and a complete overhaul of the state’s bloated bureaucracy, which included reducing 52 permanent secretaries to a more manageable 22.
Security remains the Governor’s most pressing concern, and he was remarkably candid about the frustrations of dealing with the ongoing insurgency. Lawal asserted that the state has the technological tools to track every movement of the terrorists via satellites and drones. He revealed that this data is shared with federal security agencies in real-time, yet he lamented a “dumbfounding stasis” in the response. He challenged the notion that terrorists are superior to the state, insisting that with the right will and listening ears at the federal level, the menace could be neutralized quickly.
The Governor’s “emergency” approach to education and healthcare is also yielding tangible results. Over 760 schools have been renovated and furnished, and 2,000 new teachers have been hired to address a crisis where some schools had only one mathematics teacher for every 100 students. In the health sector, Zamfara now boasts ten new general hospitals equipped with 2025-model MRI and CT scanners. By offering the highest salaries for doctors in the country, Lawal has successfully attracted top medical talent back to the state.
Looking ahead, the Governor is focused on restoring Zamfara’s legacy as a commercial hub. He spoke passionately about the state’s untapped mineral wealth, noting that an informal gold market worth $1 million daily currently exists without benefiting the people. To bridge the gap, an international airport is slated for completion by the end of March 2026, alongside a five-star hotel. For Lawal, the mission isn’t about the 2027 elections or political godfathers; it is about proving that even the most broken system can be fixed with transparency and a clear vision.
