The unspoken revolution in Zamfara

For several decades after its creation, Zamfara State was notorious for hosting some of the very bad road networks in the northwest zone.  That tag sat on Zamfara’s image following a sorry tale of neglect, which saw communities cut off during the rainy season and farmers unable to move produce to market. The state capital, Gusau, whose arteries could not keep pace with its ambitions, begged for attention. That was the story of Zamfara roads until Dauda Lawal happened.

The summary of Lawal’s active engagement with the people of the state, in strict adherence to his social contract with them, is that the story is now being rewritten. Across the state, but with major concentration in five strategic local government areas, including Gusau, Bukkuyum, Maradun, Bungudu, and Birnin Magaji, a wave of road construction and rehabilitation projects worth roughly N125 billion is under way. Taken individually, each project is a contract, a route, and a budget line. Taken together, they represent something larger. What Dauda Lawal has done so far clearly fits into what might easily pass for a silent revolution in Zamfara’s infrastructure. And without stating it, the governor may have presented a framework that could easily become a case study in what transformative leadership can look like when applied with discipline and intentionality.

Nowhere is the scale of the effort clearer than in Gusau, the state capital, where Lawal’s government has committed to project after project stitching the city and its surrounding communities together with roads. The largest single allocation on record is N20 billion for the 105-kilometre Gusau–Magami–Dansadau road, recreating a corridor that reaches deep into rural Zamfara and links farming communities to the capital’s markets. Close behind is N15 billion for the Kantin Daji–Unguwar Gwaza road and its roundabout link to the state’s new airport, and N12 billion for the Kantin Daji road connecting to Bebeji, Aminu Aliyu Road, and the Tudun Wada roundabout. These are arterial roads that impact directly on the everyday experience of commuters and traders navigating the capital.

Beyond these headline figures, Gusau has seen a dense cluster of smaller but no less consequential interventions. These include N5 billion for the Abu Magaji Bridge to Zampol road with a spur to Darul Hadith; N3 billion for the 14-kilometre Lalan to Lalan road; N1 billion for the Zamfara Plaza–Hilal Hospital–Presidential Lodge–Federal INEC dual carriageway; another N1 billion for the completion of the Emir’s Palace Junction to Water Tank roundabout, Nasiha Chemist, old market roundabout, and the Central Police Station roundabout; N500 million for the Premier Road link to Sadiq Sadiq Road; N300 million for the Kwatarkwashi–Tofa, Samawa, Rawaya Bela ward 15-kilometre road; and N100 million for the Lambar Asako to Asako, Lambar Ka’ida to Ka’ida and Sankalawa Bridge project. Individually, none of these projects would make headlines on their own. But taken together, they amount to a comprehensive re-engineering of Zamfara State and recalibrating how people, goods, and emergency services move through the capital, positively impacting hospitals, security formations, religious sites, markets, schools, private homes and government institutions. Together, these projects change the narrative on the transformative application of state resources to impact lives.

According to residents of the state, what distinguishes this programme from the kind of capital-centric spending that has historically defined Nigerian state governance is its reach beyond Gusau. In Bukkuyum, N4 billion has gone into the Mallamawa–Zarummai–Bukkuyum road with a spur to Zarummai Masama Road, a 23-kilometre stretch, alongside N1.5 billion for the Bukkuyum–Birnin Zuama–Gummi road. Residents say these are not showcase routes but vital road links serving communities in a local government area more often associated in national conversation with insecurity than with infrastructure investment. That the government has chosen to route capital there is itself a statement of intent.

Maradun has also seen a N100 million investment sunk into Kaya Road, N1 billion for the Maradun–Makera road, and N5 billion for the Maradun–Magami–Faru road. In Bungudu, N10 billion is allocated to the Daza–Gidan Dawa link to the Sokoto Road dual carriageway spanning Gusau and Bungudu, and N500 million for a 21-kilometre stretch from Tasha Babba to Lambar Kyambarawa in the Nahuche ward. And in Birnin Magaji, three separate allocations of N10 billion for the 53-kilometre Gusau–Jauri–Dogon Kade–Nasarawa Mailayi–Nasarawar Godal roads, N10 billion for the reconstruction of the Titin Bala Mande to Gadar Abu Magaji road, and N4 billion channelled through the earlier Bukkuyum entry, extend the road networks further into the state’s less-travelled corridors.

Lawal also has his eyes looking beyond the prime five local government areas. He threw in additional N15 billion for emergency road construction across the state’s three senatorial zones, while separate projects in Maru like the N3 billion Maru–Lugga road, N10 billion for the 94.85-kilometre Yandoton Daji, Doka, Yanwaren Daji, and Hayin Alhaji-Bedi-Yankuzo road in Tsafe, N2 billion for the 10-kilometre Zurmi–Rukudawa road in Zurmi, and N2 billion linking the former City King Hotel roundabout to the Command Science Secondary School and onward to the Kaura Namoda dual carriageway, demonstrate that the Dauda Lawal transformation of Zamfara roads is not confined to a handful of favoured districts, but intentionally designed as a statewide undertaking.

Nothing else describes what Governor Lawal is doing as a silent revolution than the complete absence of the theatrics that often accompany public infrastructure spending in Nigeria. There are no ribbon-cuttings staged for maximum media effect while delivery lags for years. Instead, Lawal’s Zamfara road revolution reads as a methodical, almost bureaucratic accumulation of contracts across a myriad of named roads, bridges, and roundabouts, each modest enough that no single one dominates the news cycle, but whose cumulative value approaches N125 billion. Also, the geographical spread of the projects speaks to inclusivity. Residents of Zamfara say that Lawal’s spending on roads is not concentrated where political attention is highest, but pushed outward into local government areas that have historically absorbed the state’s insecurity burden without receiving a commensurate share of its infrastructure budget. A road into Bukkuyum or Birnin Magaji does not merely move traffic, but is seen as an assertion of state presence and administrative reach.

Lawal does not seem to be asking to be judged by his speeches, but by his actions on Zamfara roads. Such actions are measured in kilometres, and calculated by naira seen to be judiciously spent. He wants the people to measure the state’s progress by whether a farmer’s harvest reaches market before it spoils and whether people can move freely without the encumbrances of bad roads. He wants the people of Zamfara State to enjoy the dividends of their investment in him.

On those grounds, the Lawal administration’s road programme offers a concrete basis for the claim of transformative leadership. It is a narrative of a N125 billion commitment distributed across dual carriageways, rural link roads, bridges, and urban roundabouts that touch not just the capital but the local government areas that most needed to be reconnected. If sustained through completion, Lawal’s programme on Zamfara roads would become one of the most ambitious infrastructure investments by a government in Zamfara State since its creation.  This is just one in a series of stories of transformation begun by Governor Dauda Lawal in Zamfara State.