Bello Matawalle, the governor of Zamfara State, has cited his resistance to the Central Bank of Nigeria’s naira redesign strategy as the reason he was denied a second term in office.
In the Zamfara State governor’s race on March 18, Dauda Lawal of the People’s Democratic Party defeated Matawalle of the All Progressives Congress.
The governor stated, “What’s being told is that we went to court over new naira notes redesign,” in an interview with DW Hausa on Thursday. I, Ganduje, and El-Rufai will receive the appropriate punishment, they claimed.
He further complained that during the elections, more military personnel were stationed in Zamfara State than there had been during the bandit takeover.
“We’ve been begging them to send military to us because we’ve been having security issues in Zamfara State, but they haven’t.
“But they dispatched around 300 vehicles carrying military into Zamfara three days before the (governorship election). There are so many soldiers! It would be great if they could send them to us to combat insecurity. Yet, they only sent them at election times.
The governor charged that the President’s administration, led by Major General Muhammadu Buhari (ret. ), had deployed a strong military presence to intimidate the Zamfara electorate into supporting the opposition PDP.
“At Zamfara, there were more over 50 soldiers in our voting unit. Even more bluntly, they stated that APC supporters would not be permitted to cast ballots.
“When I noticed it (the significant troop deployment), I knew they were planning something. I had gotten an intelligence report on what they were going to do to me, therefore this is why it didn’t disturb me. Not only did I do something that was wrong, but so did other governors.
“Those who wanted to vote for the APC were attacked and intimidated. All of us have video evidence of this. We called for soldiers to help us, but they didn’t show up. But I’ve given God complete control, Matawalle remarked.
However, he claimed that despite his defeat in the election, Bola Tinubu’s triumph as the APC’s presidential candidate provided him with sufficient solace.
We helped the APC win Zamfara State in the presidential election. Nonetheless, the governorship was lost. We are pleased with his appearance anyway. It would have hurt us even more if he hadn’t won. But I’m not at all concerned,” he remarked.
The President’s Special Advisor and Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina and Garba Shehu, respectively, could not be reached as of the time this article was filed.