Zamfara State Governor, Dauda Lawal has dared his predecessor and current Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle, to step aside and clear his name on allegations of sponsoring bandits as well as money laundering while he served as governor.
Lawal who made the call in an interview on TVC on Wednesday, said if Matawalle had any integrity left in him, he should honourably step aside and clear his name from the serial allegations leveled against him.
While responding to questions on the allegations against Matawalle, Lawal said:
“If I were him (Matawalle), I will resign and face all the allegations (insecurity & money laundering) against me. Because from all the information we’re getting, my predecessor (Matawalle) was fully involved in some of these banditry issue,” Lawal said.
Ripples Nigeria had earlier reported how a popular Sokoto State-based Islamic cleric, Mallam Bello Asada, had accused Matawalle of sponsoring several bandit leaders including Bello Turji, Ada Allero and Sububu who have been holding North-West states to ransom.
Asada who made the allegations in a viral video on Sunday night, accused Matawalle of buying Hilux vehicles for the bandit kingpins and also making huge funds available to them.
The Muslim scholar who also knocked a recent N20 million bounty placed on Turji by the federal government, described it as a joke because according to him, the announcement was made just to make the government look serious in the fight against terrorism and banditry.
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The cleric added that Matawalle was not serious with the fight to dislodge the notorious bandit leaders and their gangs as he knows where the bandits are.
On Monday, Lawal had also accused Matawalle of looting the state and leaving behind an empty treasury for him.
Speaking in an interview earlier on Channels TV’s Politics Today, Lawal stated that when he assumed office, he realized that over N250 billion was not accounted for under Matawalle.
“EFCC made a pronouncement sometime around May 21, 2023 or there about that it was alleging that N70 billion was stolen. That means before I took over. By the time I took over, I realized that that N70 billion they mentioned was a child’s play,” he said.
“So far based on available records, we realized over N250 billion was not accounted for. It is very funny. Let me explain to you the state I inherited. I inherited a very dysfunctional state. When I took over there was no N4 million in Zamfara State Government account – just empty.
“There was a backlog of salaries for four months. For three years. none of Zamfara indigene wrote either WAEC or NECO. I had to settle N1.3 billion for NECO and N1.6 billion for WAEC. Some of the students got their certificates after we settled WAEC and NECO,” the governor added.
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