Gov Lawal accuses Defence Minister of sponsoring bandits, money laundering

In a most shocking development, the governor of Zamfara State, Dauda Lawal has asked the Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle to resign his position and clear his name over allegations of sponsoring bandits, as well as money laundering while he served as governor.
Matawalle is the immediate predecessor of Governor Lawal
Speaking as a guest in an interview on Television Continental (TVC) on Wednesday, the governor said the right thing for Matawalle to do is to honorably resign his position and clear his name of the many allegations leveled against him if he has any integrity.
Lawal said: “If I were him (Matawalle), I would resign and face all the allegations against me. Because from all the information we’re getting, my predecessor (Matawalle) was fully involved in some of this banditry issue.”
Lawal had also accused Matawalle of looting the state and leaving behind an empty treasury.
Similarly, while speaking in an interview earlier on Channels TV’s Politics Today, Lawal said he realized that over N250 billion was not accounted for under Matawalle when he assumed office.
“EFCC made a pronouncement sometime around May 21, 2023, or thereabout 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.
“So far based on available records, we realized over N250 billion was not accounted for. It is very funny. I inherited a very dysfunctional state. When I took over, there was no N4 million in Zamfara State government account. It was plain empty.
“There was a backlog of salaries for four months. None of Zamfara’s indigenes wrote either WAEC or NECO for three years. 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 stated.