By Ismaeel Aleem
A civil society organisation, the Situation Room on Monitoring the War Against Banditry, has called on President Bola Tinubu to suspend federal allocations to Zamfara State and declare emergency rule, citing Governor Dauda Lawal’s alleged complicity in the state’s rampant banditry.
Addressing journalists yesterday, Henry Abba, the group’s convener, decried Lawal’s recent video statements as a “damning admission of guilt”.
In the footage, the governor reportedly disclosed knowledge of bandit kingpins’ hideouts but failed to act decisively, prompting accusations that his administration’s handling of security votes has subsidised criminal elements.
“This is nothing short of feeding bandits right from Government House,” Abba stated, labelling it a “blatant betrayal of trust and catastrophic leadership failure”.
Abba highlighted Zamfara’s dire security crisis, where villages lie in rubble, families endure nightly raids, and farmlands stand abandoned amid fear.
Despite a substantial monthly security budget of N600 million, the governor’s professed helplessness was dismissed as “utterly irresponsible”, undermining frontline troops and dishonouring fallen heroes in the fight against insurgency.
The CSO rejected claims by Lawal’s supporters that the video was a plea for federal aid, insisting it was a “confession” of inaction.
Abba challenged the governor to provide evidence of sharing intelligence with federal agencies like the military or police, questioning why such vital information has vanished into “bureaucratic voids”.
He further accused Lawal of enabling graft, with local government chairmen allegedly siphoning rural development funds while holing up in Gusau, exacerbating the security vacuum.
Abba suggested the governor’s outburst was a ploy to deflect blame onto the Tinubu administration and obscure governance lapses.
“It’s politics pushed to extremes – a theatrical bid to hide the anarchy in Zamfara’s lawless frontiers,” he opined.
Tinubu urged to free Zamfara allocations
The group issued urgent demands to President Tinubu: an immediate freeze on Zamfara’s federal allocations pending an audit of security expenditures; a joint probe by the EFCC, DSS, and National Security Adviser into resource diversions; and a National Assembly inquiry to scrutinise Lawal’s handling of intelligence.
It also called for whistleblower protections and, if complicity is confirmed, the imposition of emergency rule to wrest the state from the grip of bandits.
