As Pressure Mounts on Matawalle to Resign

Will the Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle, bow to the popular pressure on him to resign his appointment to enable President Bola Tinubu rejig the country’s security architecture with more competent hands, following last Monday’s resignation of the Minister of Defence, Mohammed Badaru Abubakar, or wait to be shown the way out? Ejiofor Alike asks

In what many Nigerians believe was part of President Bola Tinubu’s strategies to tackle the nationwide insecurity, the Minister of Defence, Mohammed Badaru Abubakar resigned on Monday and was promptly replaced by the immediate past Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Christopher Musa.

The 63-year-old former governor of Jigawa State claimed he resigned on health grounds, according to the Presidency.

However, there were strong indications that he was asked to resign on account of poor performance.

Just last week, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights reported that at least 402 people, mostly schoolchildren, had been kidnapped under Badaru’s watch since the middle of November.

Since insecurity worsened around the country, there had been calls for the sack of Badaru, and the Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle.

The agitation for Badaru’s sack intensified after his recent interview with BBC Hausa Service where he exposed his incompetence to the international community with an embarrassing claim that the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) cannot smoke out terrorists because some hideouts are too thick for bombs to penetrate.

In the interview, Badaru reportedly said: “It is true that their whereabouts are known, but they are people you cannot attack, or they are in the forests where our bombs cannot reach them.

“I assure you that our soldiers are working day and night to see how they can deal with this.”

For the former minister to make a ridiculous claim that northern Nigeria, which is located in Savanna vegetation and woodlands, has notorious forests that provide total cover for terrorists, also showed the level of hypocrisy of some officials saddled with the responsibility of fighting insecurity.

The fact that the former minister did not know that there are bombs that penetrate concrete bunkers, as demonstrated by the United States when it attacked Iranian nuclear sites earlier this year, was also evidence of his ignorance and incompetence.

A defence minister who does not know that there are fuel-air explosives for clearing forests, and heat signature sensors for detecting human presence in very difficult terrains where the eye cannot penetrate, is not fit to be a security adviser to even a local government chairman.

Due to his poor record of performance, many are of the view that the resignation claim was a ploy by President Tinubu to give him soft landing and appoint him to head a less sensitive ministry.

With Badaru’s replacement by Musa, the calls have shifted to Matawalle’s resignation.

The former Zamfara State governor is always in the news over an allegation that he had ties with the bandits terrorising Zamfara State and other parts of the North-west.

Prominent among his accusers is his successor, Governor Dauda Lawal.

Under his watch as the governor of Zamfara State, a notorious leader of bandits terrorising the state and other parts of the North-west, Ado Aleru, was turbaned as Sarkin Fulani (Chief of Fulanis) of Yandoto Emirate under Tsafe Local Government Area (LGA) of the state by the Emir of Yandoto Daji Emirate, Aliyu Garba Marafa, on July 16, 2022.

The occasion came barely two years after the Katsina State Police Command had declared the terrorist leader wanted and placed a N5 million bounty on him.

Following a public outcry, Matawalle suspended the monarch.

As Nigerians were awaiting the prosecution of the emir to serve as a deterrent to others, the state government announced his reinstatement in April 2023, claiming that the traditional title was conferred on the bandit as part of peace building efforts between the bandit and banditry-affected communities in Tsafe and Gusau Local Government Areas, which include Yandoto town.

Many believed that the emir could not have conferred the title on a wanted terrorist without the backing of the state government.

Matawalle’s suspicious handling of banditry continued to fuel speculations of his alleged links with them.

Though the minister and his supporters had on many occasions debunked this weighty allegation, his critics have remained unrelenting in their claim.

In a video, the most dreaded bandit leader in the North-West, Bello Turji, had accused the minister of being responsible for the escalation of banditry in the North-west when he was governor of the state.

“Any person living in Shinkafi, Zurmi, and Isa (Sokoto State) cannot deny this claim. There is a particular group of bandits whom the former governor pampered. I chased the group from Shinkafi; I killed their leader, Dudu, for peace to reign in Shinkafi. The group had 200 arms, but the governor later hosted them (Dudu’s boys) at the Government House,” he explained.

In November 2023, the state Commissioner for Budget and Planning, Abdulmalik Gajam, had in an interview published in a national daily, claimed that Matawalle distributed Hilux vans to bandits as governor.

The governor himself also later alleged that the minister was fully involved in banditry when he was the state governor.

“If I were him, I would resign and face all the allegations against me. And that would have been more honourable because from all the information we’re getting, my predecessor was fully involved in some of these banditry issues.

“Typical is the fact that there was a permanent secretary; when his children were abducted, it was unfortunate that he had to pay ransom through the government house.

“And it was also very clear based on all the allegations that bandits were being kept at the government house,” the governor said during a television interview.

The governor also claimed that he had reported Matawalle to the National Security Adviser (NSA), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, and President Bola Tinubu.

Matawalle’s critics renewed the calls for his resignation last week after an old video of him resurfaced online, showing him making remarks that appeared to justify the actions of some bandits.

The footage, originally aired by Channels TV in 2021, captured Matawalle — then governor — speaking to journalists at the State House in Abuja, following a meeting with former President Muhammadu Buhari.

Responding to questions about persistent bandit attacks in Zamfara, Matawalle argued that “not all of them are criminals.”

“Not all of them are criminals. If you investigate what is happening, and what made them take the laws into their own hands, some of them, sometimes were cheated by so-called vigilante groups.

“They normally go to their settlements and destroy property and take their animals. They did not have anyone to speak with, so sometimes, they went for revenge. When the vigilante group attacks them, they go for reprisals. That is exactly what happened,” Matawalle said at the time.

The clip re-emerged online shortly after Badaru’s resignation.

Will Matawalle toe the honourable path or wait and be disgraced out of office?