Abia North Senator Orji Uzor Kalu has called on Zamfara State Governor Dauda Lawal to put aside political differences with President Bola Tinubu to ensure the state benefits from federal development funds.
Speaking on Monday during the commissioning of the newly constructed Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development and the renovation of Zamfara College of Arts and Science in Gusau, the Zamfara capital, Kalu stressed the importance of political cooperation for the state’s progress.
Kalu, a senior member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), clarified that he was not asking Lawal to abandon his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), but urged him to maintain a cordial relationship with President Tinubu, an influential APC figure.
“The president is not only my brother; he is my friend. People thought we met when we were governors, no. My children used to live in his house. Mrs Tinubu brought those girls up because we were living in Abia but they schooled in Lagos.”
“They lived in Marina, in the president’s house. Whatever my political differences with the President were, we have healed it up and we are one. I want you to heal your political differences with the President.”
He encouraged the governor to put the people of Zamfara’s interests first over party politics.
“I know you are PDP. I am APC. The President is APC. Do PDP as a party but do economic development as a Zamfara man so Zamfara can develop.”
Kalu advised Lawal to practice what he called “political economics” to attract more federal government funds for the state’s development projects.
“Once you leave economic diplomacy and play politics, you will lose, Zamfara people will lose. Go and take the federal money. If you do politics, you leave the federal money. If you do political economics, you get the federal money and develop Zamfara State.”
He also called on the current and former governors from Zamfara to work together for the benefit of the people.
“(Former) Governor (Abdul’aziz) Yari is from here and you are from here. You people should come together and give Zamfara (people) the development they need and the livewire they need.”
Kalu pointed out the critical need for Zamfara to gain the federal government’s attention.
“This place needs the attention of the Federal Government. I am not saying join their party but I am saying be on good terms.”
Recalling his own political experience, Kalu emphasized the possibility of working across party lines.
“Tinubu was not in our party when President Obasanjo was in office. I was the governor of the PDP. He was the only one that was not in PDP but we shared the same ideas.”
Amid recent defections from PDP to APC by Governors Umo Eno of Akwa Ibom and Sheriff Oborevwori of Delta State, the APC now controls 23 out of Nigeria’s 36 governorships.
Critics have accused the ruling party of attempting to turn Nigeria into a one-party state, a claim President Tinubu strongly denied during his Democracy Day speech on June 12, 2025.
