Special Adviser on Information and Strategy to President Bola Tinubu, Bayo Onanuga, says allegations linking the Minister of Defence, Bello Matawalle, to banditry in the North-West have been investigation and found to be untrue.
Matawalle who is the immediate past governor of Zamfara state has been accused of being complicit in bandit activities in the state by his successor, Dauda Lawal.
Speaking in an interview on Arise TV on Wednesday, October 23, 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.
“As far as I know, most of those things are just mere allegations. 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.” Onanuga said
