Zamfara State has been hit by yet another cholera outbreak, leaving at least seven people dead and nearly 200 hospitalized across Gumi and Bukkuyum Local Government Areas.
The outbreak, which began around August 10, 2025, is spreading rapidly, with residents fearing the death toll could rise sharply as the government's response remains absent.
Sulaiman Abubakar Gumi, member of the House of Representatives representing Gumi/Bukkuyum constituency, told journalists that the scale of the crisis is alarming.
According to him, Bukkuyum alone has recorded 157 admissions, Unguwar Gamji in Gumi has 24 cases, and Birnin Waje has already counted seven deaths.
“This situation is worsening daily. In my constituency, people are dying silently while government support is nowhere to be found,” he lamented.
“Communities and volunteers are left to fend for themselves, while Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is the only organization providing any meaningful assistance.”
He traced the outbreak to the unsanitary conditions in displacement camps, where flooding has forced internally displaced persons to defecate in open drainage channels, contaminating water sources and spreading disease at frightening speed.
This is not the first time cholera has devastated Zamfara. In fact, the disease has become an annual tragedy during the rainy season — the direct result of poor sanitation, a lack of clean water, and the failure of authorities to put preventive measures in place.
Health experts warn that Zamfara is merely a mirror of a larger national crisis.
In 2021, Nigeria recorded over 3,600 cholera deaths across 30 states, with Bauchi, Kano, and Borno topping the list of fatalities. Just last year, outbreaks in Yobe and Katsina claimed dozens of lives, exposing once again the government’s inability to tackle a disease that has ravaged the country for decades.
But in Zamfara, frustration has turned into outright anger against Governor Dauda Lawal. Some residents accuse him of abandoning the people to disease and hunger while indulging in political theatrics.
“Governor Dauda is busy hosting PDP big men in Gusau, dining and smiling in expensive babarigas (agbadas), while our children drink from muddy ponds,” a villager in Bukkuyum told SaharaReporters. “Every day, he changes clothes for photographs, but he cannot provide ordinary chlorine for our water. Is this governance?”
Another angry resident from Gumi said, “We bury our loved ones every week from cholera, yet the governor lives like a king. They only come here during campaigns with bags of rice and empty promises. Now, we are left to die.”
Witnesses in affected villages told SaharaReporters that families are drawing contaminated water directly from flooded pits, while local clinics run out of basic rehydration salts.
“People are defecating openly, and children are drinking the same water. The governor has not even sent a delegation here. But he finds time to change outfits three times a day for political events,” a local health worker added.
MSF earlier raised the alarm that more than 1,500 suspected cholera cases were recorded in Zamfara between mid-June and early August alone.
Dr. David Kizito, the group’s Head of Mission in Nigeria, warned that the combination of flooding, insecurity, displacement, and lack of clean water has created a perfect storm for repeated outbreaks.
Despite repeated warnings, officials have failed to act. Instead, residents are left to battle the disease year after year, with the rainy season becoming a death sentence in vulnerable communities.
When contacted, Governor Lawal’s spokesperson, Suleiman Bala, directed our correspondent to the Commissioner of Health, Nafisa Maradun.
However, she neither answered multiple phone calls nor responded to a WhatsApp message seeking clarification on the health concerns.
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