Speaking through his media consultant, Deyemi Saka, Matawalle knocked Marafa, noting that many of them who kept quiet during former President Muhammadu Buhari's eight years have now found their voices because Tinubu is not a northerner.
The Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle, has slammed a fellow northern political leader, Kabiru Garba Marafa, over his vituperation on account of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) statement on the administration of President Bola Tinubu.
Speaking through his media consultant, Deyemi Saka, Matawalle knocked Marafa, noting that many of them who kept quiet during former President Muhammadu Buhari's eight years have now found their voices because Tinubu is not a northerner.
SaharaReporters had reported on Sunday that Marafa, former federal lawmaker and chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), had responded to a recent uncomplimentary remark made by Matawalle, about members of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF).
SaharaReporters earlier reported how Matawalle said that NEF members lacked the authority to speak for the entire region following their criticism of President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
He had noted that they had become a political burden to Northerners and were deluded into thinking they had political relevance in the country.
Matawalle’s remark was a result of the NEF's decision to withdraw its support from the Tinubu government.
Marafa, however, berated the Minister and urged him to highlight the present administration’s achievements to warrant the support of any meaningful stakeholders in the country.
The former senator stated that insulting the Northern elders was counterproductive and a great disservice to the president.
However, the Minister's aide Saka in a statement titled: "Which Northern Elders Is Marafa Speaking For," said "it is highly hypocrital that many who either lost their voice or never had it in the eight years of Muhammadu Buhari’s presidency which never dignified the live of an average northerner or interested in improving their lives through purposeful and productive leadership are now blasting like a hot furnace because the present occupier of the highest office of the land is not from their region?"
"In his (Marafa) feeble attempt at his image revival, he claimed the Minister was out of order for negatively portraying the Northern elders, and ought to have listed the achievements, programmes, and policies, projects of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the North and the country as a whole in the first 10 months of the administration.
"It is highly hypocrital that many who either lost their voice or never had it in the eight years of Muhammadu Buhari’s presidency which never dignified the live of an average northerner or interested in improving their lives through purposeful and productive leadership are now blasting like a hot furnace because the present occupier of the highest office of the land is not from their region? For how long does the North play such primitive politics?
"It is also noteworthy to educate Senator Marafa and his co-travellers that the North alone didn’t make Asiwaju Bola Tinubu the president, and no single region can make or mar a political ambition. Our constitution made it so.
"To also claim the North has a culture of not “disrespecting” their elders, I’d love Marafa to know that it is not only peculiar to the North, it is a common age long cultural practice among all regions and Africa. What is also a cultural practice is always speaking the truth and standing by the truth irrespective of whose ox is gored.
"The sustained tradition of hounding people to silence in a bid to sustain the status quo which has made the region underdeveloped with high level of poverty and illiteracy by elevating selfish politicians to the status of celestial beings is what HE Matawalle confronted and decisively dealt with.
"This is the height of mischief as he attempts to project himself to be on the side of the people. I believe any and every good student of history will and should never take this media stunt by Marafa seriously or see it as an altruistic action. We are all living witnesses to how he denied his party, APC, the governorship of Zamfara State in 2019 on the altar of insatiable personal ambition."