Onanuga: Matawalle wasn’t sacked because allegations linking him to banditry untrue

Bayo Onanuga, special adviser on information and strategy to President Bola Tinubu, says allegations linking Bello Matawalle to the spate of banditry in the north-west have been found to be untrue.

Matawalle is the minister of state for defence. He was left on as Tinubu rejigged his cabinet on October 23.

Speaking in an interview on Arise TV on Wednesday, Onanuga said Matawalle, a former governor of Zamfara, was not sacked because the office of the national security adviser (NSA) investigated allegations bordering on his ties to bandits and found them spurious.

Matawalle has repeatedly been accused of working in cahoots with bandits in Nigeria’s north-west.

Dauda Lawal, governor of Zamfara, had also narrated how the government house was allegedly used to pay ransom for children of a permanent secretary during the Matawalle administration.

Lawal said if he were Matawalle, he would resign from the federal cabinet and work towards clearing his name.

In his response, Matawalle said he has no links with bandits terrorising the state, adding that he had sworn by the Quran.

‘MERE FABRICATION’

Onanuga said the allegations against Matawalle were “mere fabrication” and politically motivated.

“As far as I know, most of those things are just mere allegations,” the president’s aide said.

“In one of them, I got something like that and sent it to the NSA and asked: ‘Have you heard about this?’

“The NSA said: ‘No. We have probed a lot of those things; they are not true’. People are just bringing out all kinds of fake things and allegations. That is why the man (Matawalle) is still in the cabinet.

“The president, I’m sure, has heard many stories about him. For him to be there shows that… like I have said, some of those things have been probed; they have been found not to be true.

“The NSA office has already investigated some of those allegations. There are mere fabrication.”