Marafa to Matawalle: Tinubu respects Northern Elders, who are not a burden to Nigeria

Senator Kabiru Marafa, a prominent and original member of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who served as the senator for Zamfara Central Senatorial District from 2011 to 2019, has attacked Mr. Bello Matawalle, the Minister of State for Defense, for characterizing the Northern Elders Forum as a political burden on the North.

In an Abuja statement on Sunday, Marafa informed Matawalle that Northern seniors are neither a burden nor paperweights in the slightest. He also urged the minister to immediately retract the hurtful statement and offer an unconditional apology to the Northern elders and to all Northerners.

Matawalle had called the Northern Elders “paperweights and a burden” in a statement titled “Tinubu Presidency: Northern Elders Forum, a political burden to the North, they do not speak for the region.”

Marafa, the coordinator of the Tinubu/Shettima 2023 Presidential Campaign in Zamfara State, stated that instead of disparaging the elders in the North, Matawalle ought to have enumerated President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s accomplishments, policies, programs, and projects in the North and the nation during the first ten months of his administration.

He stated that it was counterproductive and a great disservice to the president, who is working tirelessly to address the many challenges facing all segments and sectors of the country, including terrorism, insurgency, economic and financial malfeasance, and infrastructure decay, to name a few, to call on the elders of the region, which has and gave the highest number of votes to ensure the Tinubu presidency’s victory.

He stated that rather than sycophancy and careless remarks, President Tinubu currently needed the support, allegiance, and diligence of his appointees to actualize the Renewed Hope Agenda, which was designed to put the nation back on the path to progress and prosperity.

Senator Marafa 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.”