The Zamfara State Government has described the legacy left by former Governor Bello Matawalle as buying vehicles for bandits.
The state commissioner for budget and planning, Abdulmalik Gajam, in an interview hosted by the Chief Executive Officer of Arewa Twitter, Abdullahi Otaki, on X (formerly Twitter), also noted that Matawalle failed to make any investment in mass transit while gifting vehicles to terrorists.
Matawalle is the current Minister of State for Defence under President Bola Tinubu’s government.
Gajam said, “Recently, the governor cried out that there was a move with the Federal Government to negotiate with bandits. Why did you think that was happening? Now, someone who did not pay the school fees of up to 40,000 young people wants to come and negotiate with bandits.
“How can someone who granted asylum to bandits be a Minister of Defence? He was distributing Hilux vans to bandits but could not invest in mass transit for the people of his state.”
“The legacy that the past governor left is that he bought Hilux vehicles and dashed them to bandits,” he also said in the interview.
“We have evidence. He granted asylum at the Government House to bandits. Even in the barbaric era, there has never been a time when an emir or a king granted asylum to somebody who killed other people without hesitation, kidnapped them for ransom and raped their girls. Are these people to sit on the tables with?”
He lamented that when Matawalle got into office, the Nigerian government assisted Zamfara government to procure some bullet-proof vehicles for the state.
Gajam said the vehicles were abandoned by Matawalle’s administration.
“Most of them were bulletproof tankers. When we came into the office, we met them with flat tyres. This means they were not serviced at all. But all these were provided for and removed from the state purse.
“It is in our government that we have said we would pay the police and army their earned allowances and service their vehicles so we would be able to protect our people. That was what we met. That is Zamfara State as we speak,” he said.