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How President Tinubu Nominated Nine Ex-Governors As Ministers, Including Bello Matawalle Under N70Billion Corruption Probe.

Published

9 months ago

August 3, 2023

Stella Charles Akupue

President Bola Tinubu’s first and second batches of ministerial nominees were saturated with names of former state governors, including Bello Matawalle, who is under probe by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for alleged multi-billion naira fraud.

In his first list released last week and sent to the Nigerian Senate for screening, Tinubu nominated his political allies; former Ebonyi State Governor David Umahi; former Rivers State governor Ezenwo Nyesom Wike, former governor of Jigawa State; Muhammed Badaru Abubakar and former Kaduna State governor, Nasir El Rufai.

Meanwhile, in the second list released on Wednesday and sent to the SenateS Tinubu continued his “fraternity” with former state governors, nominating five more; Adegboyega Oyetola (Osun); Atiku Bagudu (Kebbi); Bello Matawelle (Zamfara); Ibrahim Gaidam (Yobe) and Simon Lalong (Plateau).

On Wednesday, the president submitted the list through Femi Gbajabiamila, his Chief of Staff. Gbajabiamila was accompanied to the Red Chamber by the Deputy Chief of Staff, Senator Hassan Hadejia.

The Senate has already screened 25 nominees in the first batch when filing this report, and there are three more nominees to go. Gbajabiamila had last Thursday submitted the first list with 28 nominees to the red chamber and said more names would be forwarded to the upper chamber.

Legal Attorney Blog had reported that the EFCC was probing Matawalle for alleged NN70 billion fraud. The anti-graft agency had also said it had “sent invitations to all outgoing Governors and Commissioners in a bid to commence investigation into alleged corruption and abuse of office perpetrated by them while in office.”

The EFCC, through the Director of Public Affairs of the commission, Osita Nwajah, explained that the agency was not supposed to dignify Matawalle with a response after the former governor’s outbursts. Still, it did set the record straight.

“It is intriguing that Matawalle would want to take on the supervisor role, who tells the EFCC whom to investigate. Is this a case of a “’ thief’’ saying he must not be touched until other ‘’thieves’’ are caught? The agency had said.