TheCable

Bello Matawalle, governor of Zamfara, has commended the All Progressives Congress (APC) for speaking in his defence on the state’s gold reserve.

In October 2020, the Zamfara government had said it started its gold reserve to reduce dependence on federal allocations.

Rabiu Garba, the state commissioner for finance, had noted that though there was a federal government ban on mining activities in the country, “the state government was able to purchase the commodity from licensed miners.”

“When the ban is lifted and mining activities resume fully, we are hopeful that we will be receiving royalties from miners, while the federal government will also be giving us something,” Garba had said.

But reacting, Olamilekan Adegbite, minister of mines and steel development, had said the federal government reserves the exclusive right to ownership of mineral products in the state.

Commenting on the issue on Friday, Matawalle spoke on the bad experiences he had on the issue with some PDP governors.

In a statement by Zailani Bappa, his spokesman, the governor alleged that rather than defending him on the Zamfara gold issue, some PDP governors were the ones berating him and spreading misinformation and lies about it.

He commended the decision of David Umahi, governor of Ebonyi, to join the APC, saying his decamping was as a result of the “bad blood in the present Peoples Democratic Party”.

Matawalle was quoted as saying he would rather commend Umahi for “his bold decision rather than condemn him because everyone feels welcome only in a house where he feels comfortable”.

“If this trend of generating bad blood amongst us continues unabated, our great party will increasingly be on the receiving end as we move towards the year 2023,” Matawalle was quoted to have said.

“I am having a very bad experience of recent from some of my PDP governor colleagues which I still find very puzzling. For instance, the South-South Governors accusing me in the media are PDP Governors and they are the same people who brewed controversy over the so-called Zamfara Gold, premised on deliberate misinformation and outright lies.

“Surprisingly, it is the APC Federal Government which has all the correct records on the gold mining issue that came out to defend me in this saga. As PDP colleagues, I expected the Governors to contact me first and find out my own side of the story before unleashing their venom in the media.

“As the brouhaha lasted, I commend the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, His Excellency Muhammadu Buhari, for being supportive of our efforts to organise the economic sector in the state to avoid using the mineral deposits to promote insecurity in our dear state.”