Abia North Senator, Orji Uzor Kalu, on Monday, advised the Governor of Zamfara State, Dauda Lawal, to mend his political differences with President Bola Tinubu in the interest of the people of the North-West state.
Kalu, an All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain, warned that the people of Zamfara could lose out of major development if the governor failed to play political economics with the President.
The senator spoke when he commissioned the newly constructed Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development and renovated Zamfara College of Arts and Science both in Gusau, the Zamfara capital.
Kalu said he was not advising the governor to dump his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and join the APC but he should maintain a good relationship with the President who is an APC powerbroker.
Kalu, who was Abia State governor from May 1999 to May 2007, said though he was a PDP member at the time, he maintained a good relationship with Tinubu who was of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) at the time.
The senator said, “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.
“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 urged Lawal to play political economics to get more Federal Government funds for developmental projects in the state.
The senator said, “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.
“(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.
“This place needs the attention of the Federal Government. I am not saying join their party but I am saying be on good terms.
“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.”
With the recent defection of Governors Umo Eno (Akwa Ibom) and Sheriff Oborevwori (Delta) from the PDP to the APC, the ruling party boasts of 23 governors out of 36, a development that critics labelled as an agenda to turn Nigeria into a one-party state. The president has vehemently refuted the claim in his Democracy Day speech on June 12, 2025.