On the road to the titanic 2027 general election, Zamfara State is living up to its billing as a potential electoral battleground state, especially with two sons of the state and former governors occupying influential positions in the national scheme of things. Then, there is the incumbent governor, who is not only seeking a second term in office, but also siding with one of his predecessors and shaking off the toga of desperation, LEO SOBECHI reports.

Zamfara State is renowned for its rich deposits of solid minerals. But in politics and governance, the state parades huge historic narratives bordering on political drama and electoral upsets.

Incumbent Governor, Dauda Lawal, recently told some journalists that the state is trying to shake off its reputation as the cradle of Sharia system. Yet, no matter how the banker-turned-politician wants to rewrite the state’s history with new emphasis on good governance and critical infrastructure, the scars of the state’s attempt to perfect Islam along the lines of oppositional political ideology remain.

Not many citizens would easily remember Ahmad Sani Yarima Bakura. But he is not called Tsohon Gwamna (senior governor) for nothing. Zamfara,  Bayelsa, Ebonyi, Ekiti, Gombe and Nasarawa were the last states created by the military three years before Nigeria’s return to the path of presidential democracy.

So, finding himself as the first democratically elected chief executive, Yerima equated governance with the errand of tin gods. Riding on the prevailing popular piety in the state, and above all, in a bold bid to push back on the dictates of the federal might under the Presidency controlled by the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Yerima waved religion, the legendary opium of the people, as his banner of populism.

With the popular acclaim that the Sharia legal system fetched for him, the governor did not just win a second term as governor, he also proceeded to win the Zamfara West seat in the Red Chamber of the National Assembly. As a politician adept at playing to the gallery, barely three years in the Red Chamber, the former governor made headline news for importing a 13 years old bride from Egypt.

In the nearly 20 years after Yerima left the Zamfara State Government House in Gusau, successive occupants did not disappoint in hugging national headlines for a variety of causes or political consequences. Yerima made a quiet political history when he supported his deputy, Mahmud Aliyu Shinkafi, to succeed him as governor in 2007.

Shinkafi caused a national political stir when barely after one year in office as governor, he defected to the ruling PDP, thus becoming the first notable politician to cross over from the progressive to conservative political tendency in the mineral-rich North West state.

Shinkafi paid the price for his attempt to break loose from the noose of his political godfather, Yerima. He lost his re-election in 2011 as the state returned to the fold of the progressives. The intriguing thing about Shinkafi’s loss was that the defeat of PDP by the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) was wrought by his son-in-law, Abdul’aziz Abubakar Yari.

Yari, who had circulated in various party offices, had to run for the 2011 governorship from the House of Representatives. By that time, he was representing the people of Anka/Talata Mafara Federal Constituency as a first term lawmaker.  Yari went from the governorship mandate to become the chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), taking over from Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi.

While serving as NGF chairman, Yari disclosed that the period between 2015 and 2019 was a curious time to be governor, especially given that most state chief executives were finding it hard to defray overhead costs of governance, including payment of workers’ salaries. If the Zamfara State governor was bemoaning the socio-economic challenges in the country, compounded by the bourgeoning insecurity in the North West, his attempt to play godfather while returning to the National Assembly hit the rocks.

Yari had penciled Muktar Shehu Idris as his preferred candidate for the APC governorship ticket. But the outgoing governor’s attempt to muscle the APC governorship primary led to a split of the party structure, thus pitting the governor’s camp against the other faction led by Senator Kabiru Marafa. The parallel straw poll threw up two candidates namely, Idris and Marafa.

But acting on Yari’s influence and judicial somersaults, the party’s national leadership grudgingly accepted Idris as its gubernatorial flagbearer for the 2019 poll. At the end of balloting, Idris led APC to achieve a 14/14 victory across the local councils with a gross ballot of 534, 541 against the 189, 452 votes returned by the first runner-up, Bello Matawalle, of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

However, while Idris, who served as Commissioner for Finance in the Yari administration, was attending the APC retreat for its elected representatives and governors, the Supreme Court struck, sacking all the candidates of the party in Zamfara State. The court ruled that the APC primary elections in the state were conducted in total breach of extant laws and the laid down regulations.

Receiving that shocking and surprising blow, which was foretold any way, Yari and his acolytes retreated once again from public service as power rolled back into the hands of the same PDP that the progressives had defeated eight years before. To the Marafa group, the Supreme Court judgment was a vindication for their campaign against godfathering, impunity and imposition.

Marafa had been a thorn in the political flesh of Yari. During plenary, the senator had stunned Nigerians when he disclosed that certain politicians in the state were arming bandits and engaging in surreptitious expropriation of the state’s rich mineral deposits.

Incumbency Gaffe, Godfathers’ Gamble
It was against the background of the shifting grounds of political alliances in the state that, in the lead-up to the 2023 general election, Matawalle, who became governor by procedural default, was lured back into the APC. Believing that the best way to appropriate the legendary federal might during the 2023 poll was to align with the ruling APC, Matawalle walked into a clever ambush laid by the political godfathers in the state. As things turned out, by the time the 2023 election was won and lost, it became apparent that the entire scheme of uniting the political forces under the APC structure was to pave the way for Yari’s eventual return to the National Assembly, and national politics as well.

However, extending his political magnanimity towards the former governor, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu appointed Matawalle into the federal cabinet as Minister of State for Defence. On his part, Yari, who ran unsuccessfully for the position of President of Senate as Northern consensus candidate, earned the position of Chairman, Senate Panel on Water Resources, as a consolation prize.

Ever since the 2023 general election held, both Yari and Matawalle have remained at daggers-drawn politically. For instance, Yari’s supporters do not lose any opportunity to tell whoever cares to listen how the Minister of State, Defence, orchestrated investigation of their principal for alleged corruption, particularly cases of the purported diversion of N37 billion accruing from Federal Government’s reimbursement for projects undertaken by the Zamfara State government, as well as the alleged funneling of N350 million into the bank accounts of an estate developer in Abuja.

In the exchange of beef, Matawalle blames Yari for the loss of his second term election, even as allegations of poor performance against the two juggernauts continue to make the rounds among the citizens of the state.

Enter Dauda Lawal
In what emerged as a curious replay of history, incumbent Governor Dauda Lawal, early this year, precisely on March 10, 2026, officially returned to the APC. Recall that Lawal had after losing the APC governorship ticket in 2018 to Yari’s preferred candidate, Idris, was prevailed upon by youths, who were peeved by Matawalle’s exit, to contest the 2023 governorship on the platform of PDP.

After sensing that the incumbent governor was planning a return to APC, the minister had launched media attacks on Lawal, accusing him of converting the Zamfara State Government House into a market place. Matawalle also alleged that Lawal abandoned some legacy projects in the state to embark on white elephant projects.

Nonetheless, Lawal’s membership of the ruling party has accentuated the internal wrangling and supremacy battles within the state chapter of APC. The incumbent governor has adopted Yari as the political godfather of the state much to the chagrin of Matawalle. And to complete the dimensional political warfare going on in the state, Marafa, who coordinated President Tinubu’s campaigns in 2023, has migrated to the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC). The senator counts on the schism between Yari and Matawalle as well as the public animosity towards the unremitting insecurity that have been driving farmers away from their farms to clinch victory.

APC insiders in the state express apprehension that the infighting among Yari, Matawalle and Lawal could injure APC’s electoral fortunes in the state. The Defence Minister had at one point claimed that Yari and Lawal were running the affairs of the party according to their whims and to the exclusion of other stakeholders.

The appointment of Yari as the Chairman of President Tinubu’s Presidential Campaign Council has further elevated Yari. With that development, many believe that healing the rift in the party may no longer be feasible, just as some party faithful claim that as the APC leader in the state, the onus is on Lawal to harmonise the interests of the stakeholders.

While the stalemate continues among the prime movers of Zamfara politics, the NDC is making serious inroads into what used to be the strongholds of APC at the grassroots. This is just as APC faithful claim that Marafa has been reaching out to Matawalle with a view to retrieving the control of the state from the ruling party during the governorship and other state elections.

The recent exit of not less than eight members of the Zamfara State House of Assembly from the APC seems to belie the claims of the increasing rift in the ruling party. The lawmakers, included Ibrahim T. Tukur (Bakura State Constituency);  Mukhtaru Nasiru Jikan Shehu, (Kaura Namoda North); Aliyu Ango Kagara, (Talata Mafara South); Bashar Aliyu, (Gummi I); Faruk Musa Dosara, (Maradun I); Basiru Bello, (Bungudu West) and Nasiru Abdullahi, (Maru North).

Although the legislators cited lack of unity, injustice, insecurity and poor leadership as reasons for their exit, Governor Lawal stated that they were suspended by their colleagues and failed to apologise to the House of Assembly to resume plenary.

Baring his mind during an interactive session with select journalists in Gusau, the governor dismissed the attempts to plunge the party into confusion and distract his focus on governance, stressing that he does not lose sleep over the shenanigans of detractors and opposition.

He expressed optimism that he would win the February 8, 2027 governorship election in the state. His words: “Based on what we have done, I’m fully convinced that we will deliver the maximum number of votes to Mr. President and I can’t say of any other state…Politics is like a pregnant woman, it’s only when you deliver that you will know the sex of the baby.”

Lawal dismissed insinuations that he might walk in the steps of his immediate predecessor, stressing that negotiating with bandits was a sign of surrender and abetting.

“For every dime that you pay, they use it to get all these sophisticated weapons they use. If they don’t get the money, how do you think they will get the weapons? I would not give up my money to a criminal and empower him to do more,” he stated.