Zamfara State governor, Dauda Lawal, has denied claims by two kidnapped victims who told their abductors that they were his younger brothers.
The two men were seen in a video shared on social media platforms on Tuesday being interrogated by their abductors and claimed they were related to the governor.
In the video footages, two of the hooded gunmen are heard interrogating the victims and asking them if they are related to the governor to which they answered in the affirmative that they were indeed Lawal’s blood brothers.
The gunmen then instructed the men to contact the governor to release money to facilitate their freedom, with threats of killing them if the governor fails to pay the ransom money.
A human rights activist, Mahdi Shehu, had also escalated the issue when he posted on his X handle @shehu_mahdi, insinuating that the men were actually Lawal’s brothers.
Mahdi further raised questions on whether the governor would go ahead to negotiate with the criminal gang to release his brother or he will resort to paying the ransom to free the men.
“The immediate younger brother of Zamfara State Governor, Dauda Lawal kidnapped and in the custody of kidnappers,” Mahdi wrote.
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Raising some poignant questions, he continued:
“WIll Dauda lawal negotiate with the criminal gan
“Will he pay the money being demanded, huge as it is?
“Will he seek Mattawalle’s support ? Or Yari’s assistance?
“Can he decamp to APC for the sake of his brother so that the federal government can deploy its might?
“Will he call off their bluff, sacrifice his brother and move against them with full force?
“Will high Northern politicians learn a lesson from this situation in Zamfara that neither them nor their relations are safe in the manner they left other citizens unsafe?
“Perhaps if the kidnapping industry redirects its trade to the high and mighty, an actionable action to address the issue may be on its way?”
But while reacting to the video, Governor Lawal insisted that the men are not related to him in anyway. Lawal who made this known in a statement by his spokesperson, Sulaiman Bala Idris, described the incident as a “new ploy by bandits to gain attention and bolster the sagging morale of their members.”
“Upon watching the video clips critically, one can see how distressed the kidnap victims were. I believe this is a new format adopted by the bandits. However, none of the kidnap victims is related to the Governor,” Idris said.
“The Governor has only one sibling, a woman. However, government is currently taking steps to ensure the victims’ safe rescue and to reunite them with their families,” he added.
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