Suleiman Shuaibu, a former aide to the Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle, has denied allegations claiming that his former boss embezzled over ₦528bn during his tenure as Governor of Zamfara State from 2019 to 2023.
Naijaonpoint reports that a group, Concerned Northern Forum, led by its chairman, Aliyu Sani, at a press conference in Kaduna on Monday, accused Matawalle of mismanaging funds from the Federation Account Allocation Committee, Joint Account Allocation Committee, and domestic loans.
However, in a swift reaction, Shuaibu, who served as Matawalle’s Special Adviser on Bilateral and Multilateral Affairs, dismissed the allegations, describing the group as “faceless.”
Speaking in an interview with Punch, Shuaibu defended Mattawalle ,accusing the group of bellyaching over Matawalle’s continued rise politically.
“I know the budget of the state. I know the FAAC allocation and I know how we shared the FAAC allocations. I know what we left in the treasury of Zamfara State — N11bn before handing over,” he said.
Shuaibu said he was part of a transition committee composed of members from both the outgoing and incoming governments to ensure a smooth handover.
“It is even uncalled for, for anybody to come and say that Matawalle embezzled that kind of money,” he said.
He challenged the plausibility of the figures being bandied about.
“Where will he get that kind of money from to squander? How much is the state allocation? It’s N4bn, and if it goes up, we get N5bn and in that N5bn, we paid salaries of workers to the tune of almost 8,670 staff,” he said.
Describing the accusations as politically motivated, he said, “Matawalle has been elevated by God and our opponents don’t like it. They want to see Matawalle down and they will never see Matawalle down because he’s doing the assignment he was given to do and he’s doing it perfectly well.”