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Politics successful Zamfara has often been similar a wrestling ground, a spot wherever work is unluckily cloaked successful the garb of ego. The gladiators who present situation Governor Dauda Lawal are not strangers. Some are ex-office holders and their pridefulness is being bruised by the show of a caller order. Some others are restless aspirants, circling similar hawks, hoping the politician stumbles truthful they whitethorn swoop in. Together, they signifier a ellipse of cynics, determined to distract Gamjin Gusau’s reformist docket with discord.
In communities wherever caller classrooms rise, they mutter that the walls are illusions. On freshly tarred roads and agleam thoroughfare lights, they formed stones of suspicion, saying the asphalt volition peel with the adjacent rain. Even successful villages wherever women and children are opening to consciousness the calm of improved security, they thunder that bid is lone a mirage. In their folly they spell to the grade of paying online “foreign reporters” to fertile Zamfara debased successful their cooked-up matrix. They peddle mendacious narratives that the authorities politician borrowed tons of billions putting the authorities successful debt. Alas, Odogwu 1 of Africa runs the authorities smoothly without borrowing a kobo. His precisive governance method remains an enigma to them.
This desperation is visibly reflected successful the contiguous past by-elections wherever subject unit and brute coercion was used. Local elections are the pillars of grassroots governance. For Governor Dauda Lawal, they are captious to his reforms, the instauration upon which advancement rests. But for the gladiators, they are fortresses of patronage, the sources of power and spoils. And truthful what should person been a festival of ideology turned into a circus of sabotage. Separative embers were stoked recklessly, turning fragile unity into tinder.
In immoderate wards, ballots were little astir prime than astir the value of wealth and subject might. The electoral crushed became not a fertile tract but a battlefield of egos. One of specified experiences this writer had during the 2025 by-elections successful Kaura Namoda. There, the volition of the radical was suppressed by the nationalist show of guns and force. Voters, governmental agents and observers were prevented from entering areas mapped retired by the gladiators. Threats were made and fearfulness was manufactured for definite goal. What they failed to spot successful their perceived illusory triumph is the caller resilient tone of the radical and their volition to face fearfulness with resilience. Gamji with the enactment of the radical of Zamfara volition not retreat immoderate time.
He understands that the sabotage was aimed not lone astatine elections but astatine the psyche of his larger project. He insists that authorities indispensable not clasp governance hostage, that elections whitethorn travel and spell but schools, hospitals, and jobs indispensable remain. He frames his conflict not against individuals but against a civilization of discarded and cynicism. For this, the gladiators defy him fiercely due to the fact that his subject is the reflector successful which their indulgence looks ugly. His insistence connected accountability exposes their impunity; his absorption connected improvement mocks their diversions. They bash not reason him due to the fact that they uncertainty his imaginativeness but due to the fact that they fearfulness its occurrence volition hide their legacy. Still, the outgo of distraction is heavy. Elections twisted into spectacles erode religion successful democracy.
Propaganda corrodes confidence, leaving adjacent genuine advancement doubted. Rivalries devour clip that should heal wounds of poorness and insecurity. In a authorities arsenic delicate arsenic Zamfara, distractions are not games—they are added wounds.
Fortunately, Dauda sees distractions arsenic stones connected a path. They whitethorn dilatory a man’s pace, but they cannot halt his journey. He likens governance to farming: weeds volition ever vie with crops, yet the diligent husbandman knows however to destruct weeds. He keeps his hands steady, his eyes fixed connected the larger task helium envisions. History, Dauda knows, remembers not who shouted loudest successful the governmental quadrate but who built astir faithfully. The gladiators’ echoes volition fade, but the schools, roads, and bid initiatives done by Gamjin Gusau volition remain. Like the Gusau River, Dauda flows on. And truthful helium walks forward, carrying Zamfara’s hope. The gladiators stalk and jeer, but helium is driven not by their sound but by the soundless prayers of mothers, the weary eyes of farmers, the dreams of children. For them, helium endures the distractions, knowing that enactment is not astir the sound of contiguous but the verdict of tomorrow. Dauda Lawal volition win insha Allah.
~ Prof. Rasheedah Liman writes from Gusau, Zamfara State.
English (US) ·