Group Slams Zamfara Gov’s Reconciliation Move, Says Matawalle Vindicated on Bandit Dialogue
The Northern Security and Integrity Forum (NSIF) has lambasted Zamfara State Governor, Dauda Lawal, for what it described as a “shameful U-turn” in his handling of the state’s decade-long banditry crisis.
The group said Lawal’s recent move to reconcile with known armed groups confirms that the much-criticised strategy of his predecessor, Bello Matawalle, was in fact visionary, pragmatic, and morally justifiable.
In a statement issued Friday in Gusau and signed by its national president, Dr. Sulaiman Ali Mustapha, the forum accused Governor Lawal of hypocrisy and political grandstanding that has cost thousands of lives in Zamfara and neighbouring states.
“Governor Dauda Lawal has now become the living embodiment of the phrase: ‘politics over lives.’ For years, he demonised former Governor Bello Matawalle’s approach to banditry, portraying it as weak, immoral, and counterproductive,” the statement reads.
“Yet today, after more than 20,000 civilians and over 500 security personnel have been killed according to Amnesty International and other credible conflict monitoring bodies, Dauda Lawal is now doing exactly what he once ridiculed — sitting down with the attackers and preaching dialogue.”
The group said recent images and footage of wanted bandit leaders being received at a peace meetings hosted in Katsina and Zamfara — including the controversial appearance of Ado Aleru — were a “slap in the face of every Nigerian whose life was shattered by terrorism”.
“These meetings are not acts of peace — they are acts of surrender. It shows Dauda Lawal is out of ideas, overwhelmed, and returning shamefully to a method he publicly mocked. He owes the people of Zamfara and Nigeria a deep apology — not a press conference, not another meeting — but a national apology for misleading the public and jeopardising lives through his arrogance,” the group said.
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While describing former governor Matawalle as “a man ahead of his time,” the forum argued that the current administration’s quiet embrace of his controversial strategy vindicates his tenure.
“It is now obvious that Bello Matawalle deserves not just vindication but canonization. He pursued peace in the face of criticism, he engaged with facts rather than cheap political populism, and he held the line when others were shouting for war without a plan,” the statement reads.
The group further alleged that Governor Lawal has no strategic framework for addressing insecurity in Zamfara beyond what it called “media optics”.
“Under Lawal, banditry has worsened, abductions have surged, and communities continue to be sacked while the government holds press briefings. Now that he is crawling back to the same ‘carrot-and-stick’ method he once discredited, we must ask: who is fooling who?”
The integrity group stressed that the “belated peace approach” by the Lawal administration confirms that combat operations alone cannot end the insurgency, a fact the previous administration understood and acted upon.
“This is not about romanticising non-state actors or abandoning justice. It’s about acknowledging that absolute militarisation has failed, and that engaging with community-linked actors, alongside law enforcement, can create breathing room for real solutions.”
The group called on civil society groups, the national security community, and media watchdogs to hold the Zamfara state government accountable for its inconsistency and lack of transparency in security engagements.
“We urge the Nigerian people not to be deceived by the quiet repackaging of failed policies as ‘new thinking.’ What we are witnessing is not innovation — it is imitation, badly executed,” the group said.
The coalition said it would be forwarding a dossier of its findings on Zamfara’s banditry policy failures to the National Security Adviser, and the Senate Committee on Army, for further scrutiny.
“It is no longer acceptable for politicians to weaponise security for campaigns, only to adopt the same strategies they condemned once they assume office,” the statement added.
