The Coalition of Concerned Nigerians for Human Security, has called on the U.S. President Donald Trump, to impose a visa ban on Zamfara State Governor Dauda Lawal over his alleged failure to utilize security funds to protect citizens from banditry and terrorism.
In an open letter dated 7th November, 2025 and signed by the convener, Comrade Adolphus Ewuga, to President Trump, the Coalition highlighted that despite receiving massive security budgets, Governor Lawal’s administration has presided over escalating violence, mass kidnappings, and displacement, turning the state into a “humanitarian wasteland.”
“We, the Coalition of Concerned Nigerians for Human Security, urgently write to you with deep emotional lamentation, and a solemn call for moral intervention. We write not just as citizens mourning the thousands of our Christian and Muslim brothers and sisters whose lives have been brutally truncated across parts of Northern Nigeria, but also as people who recognize your important role as a leader who is always ready to confront any moral wrongs on the global stage.
“In the past few years, the surge in catastrophic degeneration of security in Zamfara has become overwhelming and of great concern in Nigeria. This incident has recently claimed the lives of innocent children, women, farmers, elderly citizens, entire communities, and religious congregations. Unfortunately, this reality has been misconstrued internationally as an organized “Christian Genocide” or “religious extermination war against Christians.”
According to the Coalition, the killings reported in Nigeria have no religious connections, but a direct consequence of governance failure, outright negligence, gross mismanagement of security resources.
Continuing, the Coalition said, “According to the verified state expenditure data on ”Quarterly Budget Performance Reports of 2025,” not fewer than 21 federating states have collectively siphoned approximately N133 billion through “security votes.” While it’s on record and also evident that some governors have utilized these funds to improve their State security by modernizing surveillance networks, engaging traditional rulers in community-security cooperation, and strengthening police operations, Zamfara state has instead descended further into violence, terror expansion, mass displacement, and breakdown of civic life.
“Unfortunately, where there should be leadership, abandonment is largely experienced. Where there should be presence of good governance, there is absence. Where the public entrusted hope, these governors delivered betrayal.
“However, we present the truth to you today with clarity and verifiable evidence. These killings have no religious connections in any way, rather, they are the direct consequence of governance failure, outright negligence, gross mismanagement of security resources, and an exploitation of the chaos for political and financial gain by certain state individuals”.
The Coalition said it has particularly identified Governor Lawal of Zamfara State as a prime example of financial management, political irresponsibility, and moral indifference to the sanctity of human life.
They lamented that Zamfara State has turned into national slaughter houses, humanitarian wastelands, and havens of unchecked violent criminality despite alarmingly receiving massive security budget allocations.
“Under the leadership of Dauda Lawal, Zamfara State has collapsed into unspeakable horror. Instead of him to address the incessant banditry attacks and mass abductions, Your Excellency, Lawal has diverted state funds into extravagant personal expenditures, indulging in foreign trips, and empowering political cronies.
The letter added that the Governor has been repeatedly implicated in allegations of illegal mining, and awarding inflated security-related contracts that exist only on paper.
“What is more tragic is that Zamfara has become the global capital of mass kidnapping of school children, with the abduction of Jangebe and Birnin Magaji which created a big shock on the conscience of the world. Yet, no judicial inquiry was set up, no audit was done, and no transparency initiative has been undertaken. The killing fields stand today as haunting monuments of a Governor who is in deep slumber”.
Continuing, the Coalition stated, “Under Dauda Lawal’s leadership, there are numerous informal settlements and camp-like settings where displaced people live, yet, there are no official, government-established IDP (Internally Displaced People) camps in Zamfara State but we see are more expansions of well-known major bandit camps.
“Dauda Lawal style of governance has been described by many local watchdogs as a ‘ theatre of deception built on hollow pronouncements, media photo-ops, and selective propaganda. While communities swam in their own blood, Governor Lawal jets across continents in luxury tourism.
Drawing the attention of President Trump to the immense suffering endured by both Muslims and Christians in Nigeria, the Coalition stated that the narrative that it’s is a religious war is inaccurate and dangerously misleading.
“Your Excellency, silence has become complicit in Nigeria. Innocent Nigerians– Christian and Muslim worshipers, villagers, Hausa traders, Fulani pastoralists, Tiv farmers, are all dying not because they hate one another, but because their governor, Dauda Lawal, abandoned them to the wolves of banditry and insurgency,” the letter read.
Adding that every patriotic Nigerian knows that this is a war of betrayal by the government, a war of leaders who prefer political optics to human rescue, and a war about selfish elites enriching themselves while citizens are buried.
They stated that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has shown federal-level urgency consistently by deploying special forces to affected zones, increasing state security allocations, and funding the modernization of armed forces coordination systems.
Despite these efforts from the president, the Coalition emphasized that it’s an undisputable fact that no amount of Federal intervention can ever succeed where any state governor openly misappropriates allocations, sabotages federal efforts, or becomes apathetic towards the suffering of his own people.
They however urged President Trump not to interfere in Nigeria’s internal democratic politics, rather place Governor Lawal and his family on visa restriction sanctions.
“We write to you not to interfere in our internal democratic politics, but to request that Governor Dauda Lawal of Zamfara State, and his immediate family be placed on diplomatic and visa restriction sanctions. These individuals enjoy safe haven abroad to provide foreign education for children while children in their states dodge gunfire on the way to school. They launder stolen funds meant for the people, and receive medical tourism benefits while hospitals in their communities lack syringes. They continuously enjoy luxury vacations while their people live in fear.
“We believe that a Visa ban will disrupt the comfort they derive from foreign refuge, and we also believe that this sanction would apply international accountability pressure on other political actors who trade human lives for private businesses.
“We respectfully urge the U.S. government to publicly call for Nigeria to consider a State of Emergency in Zamfara State. This is a constitutional measure and it has been used before in Nigeria under broader security crises.
“We trust your understanding of strategic diplomatic pressure. We trust your record of defending persecuted peoples around the world. And we trust your commitment to global human rights enforcement”, the Coalition stated.