Zamfara State Governor, Dauda Lawal, has raised alarm over the deteriorating security situation in the state, warning that the scale and complexity of the crisis now transcend Zamfara and threaten the collective stability of the entire Northern region.
The governor said the insecurity ravaging the North-West carries broader implications for regional stability, food security, community resilience, and national sovereignty.
He stressed that frontline states must adopt a decisive, coordinated and intelligence-driven strategy to confront criminality at its roots.
“Zamfara continues to bear the heaviest weight of banditry in the North-West. The state is experiencing escalating killings and mass abductions, disruptions to farming and rural livelihoods, attacks on highways and border communities, displacement of thousands, and an erosion of public confidence and social cohesion,” he said.
Lawal noted that Zamfara serves as a strategic transit and operational base for multiple criminal networks, making its vulnerability a direct threat to Sokoto, Kebbi, Katsina, Kaduna, Niger and beyond.
He warned that criminality in one Northern state inevitably spills into others, underscoring the need for a unified regional response backed by the Federal Government.
He stated that Zamfara firmly rejects any form of unregulated or politically motivated peace initiative with violent non-state actors anywhere in the North-West, insisting that such parallel negotiations undermine constitutional authority, embolden criminal networks, compromise ongoing operations and create contradictory messaging across states.
“Peace without disarmament is deception. Reconciliation without enforceable control is surrender. Negotiations must come from a position of strength and be backed by superior force,” the governor said.
He urged Northern Governors to agree that any peace engagement must be state-led, security-aligned, intelligence-supported and fully coordinated across all member states.
According to him, criminal elements across the North-West have improved their mobility, forged cross-border alliances, exploited gaps in security formations, expanded revenue streams through ransom, illegal mining and illicit taxation, and used vast forest corridors across multiple states to strengthen their operations.
He stressed that the regional nature of their activities demands regional countermeasures, adding that no single state can tackle the challenge alone.
He called for the creation of a North-West/North-Central Security Integration Framework to enable joint operations, shared intelligence and unified command structures.
Lawal also proposed the establishment of permanently manned Regional Intelligence Fusion Units covering human intelligence, signals intelligence, aerial surveillance and inter-state early warning systems.
He called for synchronised land and air operations across forest belts shared by Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna, Kebbi and Niger.
He further highlighted the need to protect boarding schools, secure agricultural zones to avert famine, safeguard inter-state highways, and strengthen rural communities against infiltration.
He emphasised the importance of recognising illegal mining as a major source of armed financing and called for joint regulation, enforcement, and federally-backed mining governance reforms.
The governor said Zamfara continues to invest heavily in supporting security formations through logistics, fuel, operational support, equipment maintenance, community intelligence networks, humanitarian assistance for displaced persons, and the strengthening of the State Security Council.
“Zamfara stands today not as a symbol of failure, but as the epicentre of a national challenge that demands honesty, courage, and collective resolve. The enemies destabilising Zamfara are the same enemies threatening the North — and by extension, Nigeria,” he said.
