Governor Dauda sponsoring people to lie against me – Matawalle

Bello Matawalle, minister of state for defense, strongly denied reports that false accusations could lead to his removal from office.

He spoke out against the Zamfara State Government’s accusations in an interview with DCL Hausa.

In March, Mr. Dauda of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) defeated Matawalle, who had served as governor of Zamfara State from 2019 to 2023, in an election for a second term.

The government of Zamfara State has accused him of theft and other financial misdeeds in connection with the construction of a state cargo airport.

It was further claimed that on October 25, 2021, Matawalle directed the Ministry of Local Government to transfer N1 billion from the local government common account and pay out N825 million to contractors without doing an accurate appraisal.

During the interview, Matawalle blamed Governor Lawal for spreading rumors about him and emphasized that the state’s problems had been around long before Lawal took office.

Responding to the issue of the airport road, he noted that once Dauda became governor, he initially pledged to rebuild the airport road but instead used a bulldozer to destroy the road that Matawalle had already constructed.

To paraphrase, “On the issue of the airport road, after Dauda became governor, he deceived the people by saying he was going to repair the airport road, only for him to take a bulldozer there and scrap the road we already constructed.”

Matawalle claimed that the governor of the state did this to make him seem bad and to imply that he had done nothing to advance the state’s progress.

He claimed the governor, despite funding, had similarly mismanaged the Ruga project to the detriment of the people of Zamfara.

In addition to defrauding the people of Zamfara, the minister said the incumbent governor has abandoned his duty to safeguard the population of the state.

Matawalle explained that the cost of just one of the airport roads was over N4 billion, but the governor made up stories to damage his reputation and destroy important infrastructure projects in the state.