Bayo Onanuga, the Special Adviser on Information and Strategy to President Bola Tinubu, has addressed the absence of Bello Matawalle, the Minister of State for Defence, from the recent cabinet reshuffle. Matawalle, a former governor of Zamfara State, has faced accusations of having connections with bandits.
In an interview with Arise TV, Onanuga explained that the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) conducted an investigation into these allegations and deemed them to be “mere fabrications.” He stated, “As far as I know, most of those things are just mere allegations.”
Onanuga elaborated on his communication with the NSA regarding the allegations, saying, “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.’”
He emphasized that these claims were unfounded, asserting that the persistence of such allegations is the reason Matawalle remains in his cabinet position. Onanuga concluded, “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 and found not to be true.”