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 Lawan Majakura: The Fish Seller Who Slammed the Speaker of the Yobe Assembly

In the governorship and state assembly elections held on Saturday, March 18, 33-year-old Lawan Musa Majakura defeated the Speaker of the Yobe State House of Assembly, Alhaji Ahmed Mirwa Lawan with 182 votes to represent Nguru II Constituency in Nguru Local Government in Yobe State.

Focus News Hausa source, Aminiya talked to the elected member of parliament of the PDP over the phone, where he explained his brief history and political activities and how he achieved success outside the Speaker of the House:

What is your brief history?

I was born in Majakura town in Nguru Local Government in January 1990. I studied primary school in Majakura.

I then went to the Government College in Nguru, where I obtained a Diploma in Islamic Studies.

I then went to the Federal College of Science and Technology in Damaturu, where I graduated in 2009 with a Higher Diploma (HND) in Business and Management in 2020.

But I did not get the opportunity to serve the country (NYSC) because I was too old and that is why I got a certificate of age increase as the system shows.

From there I got involved in the business of selling fish and other things that will give me something to continue my need.

Currently, I have one wife and four children.

Have you been elected as a member of the State Legislature, or have you ever run for office?

Yes, I did run for councilorship in 2021 when I was in APC before I switched to PDP, but I did not get it.

Our people, especially the youth, asked me to run because they think I can do better than that, but God did not make me fit at that time. help the community.

Alhamdulillah, God has accepted our prayers and those of our elders and now I am a member of the Legislative Assembly.

As we have heard in the past, it was said that there was a time when some security forces arrested you and detained you three times for criticizing the speaker of the parliament and some politicians on Facebook. What is the truth of that?

I was actually arrested twice. One of them came from a politician in the APC before I left the party, after I criticized him on Facebook, the police arrested me and detained me for five days.

The second is that of the President of the Assembly who I criticized for not representing us the people of Nguru Constituency 11.

I was arrested and detained for 48 hours that is last year in the month of Ramadan that is like now.

And what makes me feel like this is no more than every time I hear that the state government approves the work of the constituencies for the members of the state parliament, I always confirm where our money is spent, if it has any effect in our society. where I follow up with them to see that the work is done.

So whenever I see that he fails to do the right thing, I cancel him every time I find out that we have a problem that he can solve but he is unable to do so, and I always say that there is no bias in it that causes I am addicted to detention.

What attracted you to run for the Speaker of the Parliament who spent 20 years in the Parliament until he reached his current position?

In fact, many factors have influenced her candidacy.

The first thing, in the field of education, we have gone backwards in our village of Majakura and we see how things are happening every day where our classrooms are damaged and there are few jobs for many of our young people and the same is true in the field of health. Realize that the lack of good representation has caused us to get into this situation.

So, to solve these challenges, our people asked me to run for office, maybe they think I will do different things that will help them.

Did you say that your people asked you to run for office, or did they give you any support for the election campaign?

Yes, they bought me the application form. They also donated money for the election campaign and did not contact me whether I was interested or not.

They just bought a form and said they want me to run for office, and I didn't ask them how much they bought the form, I immediately filled it and returned it to them.

You know that when you seek a seat in any party there is a primary election, but I won unopposed in my party PDP.

The people of my village, who are mostly farmers and fish sellers, also raised money for me for the election campaign, some of them called me on the phone and wished me success, and some transferred 20,000 to 50,000 Naira to my bank account. , all because they think I can do the right things as long as I reach success.

During our election campaign, people were harassed because of the difference in the party, but thank God, despite the challenges we were faced with, we were able to win the election, but it is not an easy thing to defeat the Speaker of the State Legislative Assembly.

Whether the President of the Assembly contacted you before the election and you withdrew him?

The truth is, he did not contact me to withdraw his candidacy. But a government official and others who I think are his representatives came to me twice asking me to withdraw.

They promised to give me 18 million Naira, but I refused, later they came back and offered me 100 million Naira, but I refused.

I told them that the people of our village bought me a form to run for office because they believe that I will do the things that are necessary for me to win.

Therefore, I don't see any reason why I should withdraw from the contest. When I saw that they moved, I told them to go and meet my people if they really want me to withdraw my candidacy to whoever sent them to me.

Later, I told my people what we discussed but we all agreed that I will not withdraw, so we continued with the election campaign without listening to them again.

What will you put forward if you join the parliament for the people of your constituency?

We always do things differently, for example, as I am talking to you, I have more than 25 girls and 30 boys who have received secondary education through support and training.

The Speaker of the House cannot tell you the number of people he has helped to achieve this goal because I don't think he has anything to say about that.

In terms of good representation, I will give priority to education by reforming our classrooms and ensuring that we hire qualified teachers and provide learning and teaching materials.

Second, our health care facilities need to be well maintained by providing medicines and professional health workers considering that we have large populations.

I will also try to provide water and other infrastructure.

In the same way, I will urge the government to provide our people with the necessary things for their development, and I will do everything possible to present a resolution to ensure that our damaged roads in my constituencies are rebuilt, God willing.

There are many people who have graduated but are unemployed and our schools need them, so I will make sure that the government hires such people, whether temporary or permanent.

I will make sure that I am with my people every weekend to hear their problems and what I can do to solve them.

If I can't solve the problems I will take them to the appropriate parties to take action on it.

Has Governor Buni or the President of the Assembly called you to congratulate you for winning the election?

It is true that none of them called me to congratulate me, but I received congratulatory messages from civil servants, politicians, journalists and civil society organizations.

The messages of these people encouraged me, so I did not worry about the message of the President of the Council.

The results of the election show that the APC has 22 parliamentary seats while your PDP has two. You are a minority and this may affect your work. Is there a possibility that you will switch to APC?

In fact, I will not say anything because only God knows what will happen today or tomorrow. I know that Governor Buni is a humble person with leadership skills, so according to my understanding, he will not allow party differences. affect the development of Nguru or Yobe State.

What I can say is that I will do everything possible to ensure that I convey the problems of the people of my constituents who have been left behind to the state government and follow all the appropriate methods, with the hope of solving them.

God willing, I will never disappoint them regarding their needs.