A Senator who represented Zamfara Central, Kabiru Marafa, has asked the Minister of State Defence, Bello Matawalle, to tender an unreserved apology and withdraw his offensive comments against the Northern Elders Forum, NEF.
DAILY NIGERIAN reports that Mr Matawalle, while responding to threats by the forum to vote against president Bola Tinubu in the 2027 election, had described the elders as ‘paperweights and a burden’ to the region.
But in a statement sent to DAILY NIGERIAN on Sunday, Mr Marafa said that rather than negatively portraying the Northern elders, the minister should have listed the achievements, programmes, policies, and projects of the current administration in the first 10 months.
He said calling the elders of the region that gave the highest number of votes to ensure victory for the Tinubu presidency was counterproductive and a great disservice to the president.
According to him, what the president needs from his appointees is support, loyalty, and hard work to actualize the Renewed Hope agenda, not sycophancy and unguarded statements.
He said: “In the last one week, I have been inundated with calls from well-meaning and prominent stakeholders in our region and party, the APC, who know my relationship with the President.
“They are worried and disturbed that the unfortunate statement by the Minister of State for Defence, if not addressed, could affect the president’s electoral fortunes in our region because it will be seen as if the minister spoke the mind of the president or the presidency.
“The crux of the matter is that; whether you like them or not these people are called Northern Elders, so, unless they are stripped of that title by the people of the region, insulting them is tantamount to insulting the entire people of the region.
“It’s not in our culture and upbringing to insult elders. No descent society will refer to its elders as a burden and paperweights. The North is not an exception.
“As one of the senators who worked very closely with Asiwaju as party leader (as he was then called) from the formation of APC through the primaries that led to the emergence of General Muhammadu Buhari as APC presidential candidate in Lagos, the politics of the National Assembly leadership in 2015 and 2019, and the processes and intrigues that characterised the 2023 Presidential Primaries, I can say without mincing words that President Tinubu holds the North, the Northerners, and their leaders in high esteem.
“Although, I’m not the mouthpiece of either the president or the Presidency, as a Northerner and an elder in the region, as an APC stakeholder and one that has worked closely with both the president and the Vice President, I want to state categorically that this view expressed by Mr Matawalle is his personal opinion and not in any way that of Mr President or the Presidency, and should, therefore, be disregarded.
“I know for sure that the North, Northerners and the Northern elders are neither a burden nor a paperweight in the scheme of things in the region and the country as a whole. The president shares this view, and therefore he is with me on this.”
Credit Gist New Today News in Newspaper Nigeria Headlines
