By Zubairu Idris Abdulrauf
The political winds are whirling. Dark clouds sweep across the nation, and the first drops of a powerful rain are falling. 2027 is Nigeria’s moment of metamorphosis: a new political season is germinating, and citizens are shaking off the tired playbooks of yesterday’s leaders.
With bandits still holding communities hostage, wallets squeezed by hardship, and a looming tax squeeze threatening to choke households, Nigerians are rising. Tired of empty promises, they are freeing themselves from the grip of politicians who’ve traded service for spectacle. The clock of accountability has ticked loud.
In a jarring development that crystallizes this awakening, images of a humiliated lawmaker have sent shockwaves through the land. Kabiru Mika Dangulbi, representing Maru South in Zamfara’s State Assembly, was brutally manhandled in Dansadau — that dreaded lair of armed thugs in the Northwest — on Wednesday, as Governor Dauda Lawal looked on. It wasn’t a fluke. In the same unforgiving arena, another lawmaker from the same constituency, Kabiru Hashimu (2019–2023), was stripped naked for failing his people. Twice, in the same hot soil of banditry, elected officials have been paraded as trophies of incompetence.
Maru South, encompassing the terror-stricken towns of Kuyanbana, Dansadau, Dangulbi, and Dankurmi, has become a grim mirror held to Nigeria’s politicians: serve your people, or face their fury. The Dansadau outrage, ugly as it is, carries a defiant gift: an electorate now armed with unsparing judgment. Will leaders walk with their constituents, or crome into the ballot booth shamed?
“We are watching,” murmurs the nation. As the famed revolutionary once said, “Revolution is probable, but human folly makes it inevitable.” Is the mob’s lashing of a sitting lawmaker the birth of a wiser Nigeria — or the first thunder of something fiercer? One thing is certain: the road to 2027 is at a razor’s edge. Will politicians heed the mandate, or stumble into the storm?.(
Zubair Abdurrauf Idris is a public affairs analyst, wrote from Abuja)
