The minister of state for defence, Bello Matawalle, has advised Gov. Dauda Lawal of Zamfara to focus on his job of governing the northwestern states and leave him alone.

Mr Matawalle gave the advice in an interview with journalists in Abuja.

He was reacting to some allegations by Mr Dauda concerning his tenure as governor of the state.

The allegations bordered on mismanagement of resources, heavy debts and non-payment of examination and school fees for students at home and abroad, among others.

“I think the man is not ready for governance. He’s always shifting blame instead of concentrating and making sure that he delivers dividends of democracy to the people of Zamfara.

“He only engages in fighting, looking back at what happened long ago; how many governors have governed the state? Four or five of us.

“Over the years, none of them has looked back and tried to rubbish their predecessor, but this one, instead of him to concentrate on the issue of security, he is playing blame games.

“When students of Gusau University were kidnapped, Mr President mandated all of us, all the security agencies, to go to the place and console the people of the state and the parents.

“He wasn’t in the state. He was away. He was not in Nigeria. We called him, he did not respond. We had to go through a third party before we got his phone number and we called him.

“He pleaded with the minister here, that he was away but that once he comes, he would tell us so that we can come.

“This is a team that Mr President mandated to go to the state. Till today, no communication from this person.

“He is just pushing blame instead of him to concentrate. My advice to him is that he should remember that he was elected to tackle the issues in his state.

“As Dauda’s predecessor, I always pray for him to succeed, to ensure that the issue of insecurity, terrorism and banditry become history in the state.

“That is because no matter what it is, that is my state, my family and everybody is there, including my extended family.

“So, I’m always praying each and every day for God to free and protect us from this kind of situation.

“As stakeholders, we must come together, team up and fight these criminalities.

“I feel that they just want to distract me from the responsibility that was given to me as Minister of Defence. They don’t want me to concentrate on my responsibility. I won’t allow them.

“God knows I have done my best and I’m going to try to do more. And for Nigeria, we are working hard to make sure that all sorts of criminalities will go.

“I believe he should sit down, do a critical analysis, and he would know that the people advising him wrongly are his enemies.

“With every complaint, people would begin to see the governor as a perpetual complainant.

“He is not a woman, he is a man. Let him concentrate. Let him stand. Let him be firm on his responsibility. He should not be like a woman crying all the time.”

The minister said that he would not respond to the governor again as the Northern Elders Forum and the Police had advised him not to.

“Let him continue saying whatever he wants to say. I have said my own. We have so many things to say about him that I’m not going to say because our elders have talked about it. I respect them and I’ll make sure that I respect what they advised me to do.

“I think all we need to do is to come up together and solve the issue of insecurity in Nigeria, particularly our geo-political zone.

“There are so many challenges known to us, so why are we fighting ourselves?

“I will concentrate to make sure that the people of the North-West are free from these criminals. This is what we’re supposed to do as leaders of that zone.

“We should come together and fight these criminals together instead of engaging in fighting ourselves,” he added

(NAN)