Lawal Dauda

Dauda Lawal (born 2 September 1965) is a Nigerian banker and politician who is the governor of Zamfara state. He was elected under the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 Nigerian gubernatorial elections defeating the incumbent Governor Bello Matawalle of the APC.

Lawal graduated from Ahmadu Bello University in 1987 with B.Sc. in political science, he obtained an M.Sc. in political science/international relations from the same university in 1992, and holds a PhD in business administration from Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto.

He started his working career in 1989 as a political education officer with the Agency for Mass Mobilization for Social and Economic Reliance Nigeria. In 1989, he joined Westex Nigeria Limited as an assistant general manager. In 1994, he was appointed as an assistant consular officer (immigration), and later chief protocol officer, Embassy of Nigeria, Washington, D.C., US.

Lawal joined First Bank of Nigeria Plc in May 2003 as relationship manager, commercial banking, and was at various times senior manager, Abuja Area office, business development manager, Abuja, principal manager, group head PSG II, assistant general manager (business development manager), Maitama, deputy general manager (business development manager), Maitama/group head public sector, Abuja.

Between October 2010 and September 2011, Lawal was elevated to the position of executive vice president, public sector North, of First Bank of Nigeria Plc. In September 2012, he became executive director, Public Sector North, of First Bank of Nigeria Plc.

Lawal ran for the office of the governor of Zamfara State in the APC primary election held in 2018 but lost to Mukhtar Shehu Idris. He ran again in the PDP primary in 2022 and was nominated the party's flag bearer. In March 2023, he defeated incumbent Bello Matawalle to be elected governor of Zamfara State.

In one of the biggest upsets of the 2023 general elections, Lawal unseated incumbent governor Bello Matawalle in the March 18 governorship election. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Lawal the governor-elect with a total of 377,726 votes to defeat Matawalle of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who polled 311,976 votes. Surprisingly, the PDP had never won a governorship election in Zamfara since 1999.

The main opposition party lost to the various iterations of the ruling party in previous elections: from the All People's Party (APP) to the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) to the APC. Matawalle himself came to power as a PDP candidate in 2019, but it was the Supreme Court that gave him the top job having penalized the APC for not nominating its victorious candidate through valid primaries. In 2021, Matawalle decamped to the ruling APC.

In his first year in office, Lawal completed projects in Bakura and Aradun, and in Gummi, Bukkuyum, and Maru Local Government Areas.

An anti-corruption group, Nigeria Public Transparency Initiative Group (NPTIG), has called on the federal government and other anti-graft agencies to investigate the source of $40 million allegedly traced to Dauda Lawal as a former Executive Director of First Bank. The group urged authorities to review his accounts and avoid plea-bargains on corruption-related allegations.

Lawal received the FirstBank CEO Merit Award for Outstanding Performance as the 'Best Business Development Manager' in 2006 and 'The Most Enterprising Staff' in 2009. In 2024, he received the Distinguished Award for Project Innovation at the Nigeria Excellence in Public Service (NEAPS) awards.