Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in Gusau on Monday. They blocked traffic at Freedom Square and major junctions. Banners demanded President Bola Tinubu’s resignation. Motorcycle groups amplified the message. One protester, captured on video, put it plainly: “We are tired of hunger, we are tired of killings.” Security operatives dispersed the crowd to prevent violence.
Northern Nigeria has a history of street pressure that governments ignore at their peril. The 2012 Occupy Nigeria protests forced a partial reversal of fuel subsidy removal. In 2024, the #EndBadGovernance demonstrations drew crowds across the north, with Kano, Katsina and Zamfara among the flashpoints. Each wave followed the same sequence. Economic grievance meets state force. Officials promise investigations. The cameras leave. Nothing changes. Zamfara has been at the centre of the banditry crisis since 2011. It has buried more citizens to armed groups than almost any other state.
The protesters cited two grievances. Hunger and insecurity. They are connected. Banditry has displaced farmers and closed markets. Food prices have followed. A bag of rice costs what a minimum-wage earner takes home in a month. Fuel sits above ₦1,400 per litre. The state has recorded repeated mass abductions, including the recent killings of police officers on the Sokoto-Gusau highway. The crowd demanded Tinubu’s resignation, not a policy adjustment. That is a shift in tone.
Security dispersed the gathering. Social media posts also claimed attacks on APC supporters during the unrest. Those claims are unverified. What is documented is the protest itself and the disruption it caused.
Winners: Opposition mobilisers, who gain a signal of northern discontent. Social media, which gained footage. Protesters, who made their anger visible. Losers: The Federal Government, which faces a public demand for resignation. Governor Dauda Lawal, whose state is the venue. Security agencies, who must now defend their handling of the crowd. APC supporters attacked in the confusion. Residents of Gusau, who lost a day of trade. The 2027 campaign, which now carries the risk of street confrontation.
Bottom Line: Protesters in Zamfara did not ask for palliatives. They asked the president to resign. When hunger and insecurity meet in the same square, the message becomes existential. The government can disperse a crowd. It cannot disperse the grievance. Until the killings stop and food becomes affordable, the square will fill again.