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Matawalle: The Poster Boy of Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda By Gabriel Okino
Matawalle: The Poster Boy of Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda
By Gabriel Okino
A lot has been said about the former governor of Zamfara state and Minister for State for Defence, Hon Bello Matawalle. Interestingly, they dwelled in the realm of speculation and not reality. There is a fact that can’t be washed away about Hon Bello Matawalle: he is a bold and courageous individual who does not suffer fools gladly. He might not be the darling of newspapers, but a close encounter with him would reveal the depth and quality of his thoughts and how pragmatic he can be in his methodologies.
I had an encounter with him, and I was left speechless with the revelations that followed. I was confronted with someone who exuded brilliance and a grasp of governance issues. Although he presents a shy mien, he is not a shy individual. Rather, he is fierce in thoughts and actions. This much he has brought to bear as the minister of state for Defence. Indeed, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu saw and recognized these attributes in him, hence the appointment. I dare say the president knew what he wanted in a defence minister and why he went for Matawalle.
Has Hon Bello Matawalle lived up to the occasion in the critical defence ministry? The answer is yes. His scorecard in the past year is littered with a combination of insights and tangibles that are primed to re-position the defence sector in the country. It must be stated that he has introduced a new strategic focus in the policy direction and implementation for the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
For example, the minister recently signed an MOU and joint venture agreement between the ministry, the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria, and the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure on the establishment of an ammunition production factory in Nigeria. This is on the heels of the recent revelation that the Armed Forces of Nigeria requires 200 million rounds of ammunition annually for its operations, costing the government at least two dollars per ammunition. The implication of this is that it would cost the country $400 million annually for ammunition for the military alone, aside from the police and other para-military organizations in the country. Spending such an amount of money when we can produce locally is a no-brainer. We should admit that producing ammunition locally with the recent MOU signed is a brilliant one from the Minister of State for Defence.
This example indeed gives us a peep into his mind and how he hit the ground running with policies that would translate to tangibles in addressing some of the challenges hindering the operational effectiveness of our Armed Forces. In his words, “We have been travelling around the world, and we see how local manufacturers are developing their countries. Therefore, I promise Mr President that before the expiration of his four years, DICON will be exporting its military capabilities.” This is an audacious statement. The implication is that not only will the country meet its local demands, but it will also enter the business of exporting military capabilities.
In case we do not know, the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON) was established “to operate the ordnance factories for the manufacture and supply of arms and ammunition as well as inspecting, testing and recommending ordinance material intended for use by the Armed Forces and other security organizations. The organization can produce Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, designed specifically to withstand improvised explosive device (IED) attacks and ambushes. It also can produce mine clearance systems, assault rifles, pistols, ammunition and other military hardware. That the minister of state for defence has decided to ramp up the operational effectiveness of such critical national assets indeed speaks volumes of a man on a mission.
The above is just one example out of the numerous engagements that have been undertaken since he assumed office as the minister of state for defence. There is no doubt that there have been distractions for the honourable minister, especially from his home state, he had continued to focus on the task at hand. This is also another attribute that came to the fore during the chance encounter. Hon Bello Matawalle is such a focused individual who doesn’t allow room for distractions. He indeed mentioned that there have been calculated attempts to smear his reputation by some vested interest, especially from his home state. He mentioned that he rarely gets distracted by side talks. How he does it remains in puzzle given the avalanche of attacks on his personality.
Those around him confessed that he has an uncanny ability to ignore certain things he perceives as unimportant. I agree with this position because the manner he waved off some questions during the chance encounter was indicative. I dare say he is the unnoticed poster boy of this administration. One could feel his passion and commitment to the job. He tells any who cares to listen that he owes the president a great deal of appreciation for appointing him as the minister of state for defence. A gesture he does not take for granted hence his relentless pursuit to help the president achieve the renewed hope agenda that emphasizes shared prosperity among Nigerians.
This he has strived to achieve through the conception and implementation of policies to revamp the defence sector in the country. There may be questions about his position on the happenings in his home state. These questions with the benefit of hindsight are geared towards political persecution. They do not in any way reflect the reality on the ground. Some of them do not add up logically. And they remain a figment of the imagination of the perpetrators. It is called the danger of the single narrative and why Nigerians should be circumspect by not taking things for reality from a single narrative.
I believe that in the fullness of time, Nigerians will come to know and understand the personality of Hon Bello Matawalle and his strength of character and undiluted passion for the entrenchment of sustainable growth and development of the country. His stewardship at the ministry of defence is notable and why those who have elected to smear his reputation should have a rethink. He is on a mission to deliver on the renewed hope agenda of the president. There is no doubt that he is the poster boy of this administration. Those who have elected to constitute themselves into distractions are only engaged in a wild goose chase. This man is focused and unperturbed. The earlier they realized this the better for their sanity.
Okino PhD is a public affairs analyst based in Ibadan.
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CELEBRATING A DISTINGUISHED STATESMAN: AMB. DR. BEN U.W. AMADI HONORED ON HIS BIRTHDAY FOR LEGACY OF VISIONARY LEADERSHIP AND SERVICE
*CELEBRATING A DISTINGUISHED STATESMAN: AMB. DR. BEN U.W. AMADI HONORED ON HIS BIRTHDAY FOR LEGACY OF VISIONARY LEADERSHIP AND SERVICE
*Global* – Colleagues, dignitaries, and citizens across nations today join in celebrating *Amb. Dr. Ben U.W. Amadi*, Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Atlantis, as he marks another year of impactful life and service on this special day.
#### *A LEADER DEFINED BY EXCELLENCE AND SERVICE*
Described by peers as a remarkable personality and visionary leader, Amb. Dr. Amadi’s unwavering commitment to excellence, leadership, and service continues to inspire many across nations. His tenure as Deputy Prime Minister has been characterized by strategic diplomacy, principled governance, and a relentless pursuit of progress for the people of the United Kingdom of Atlantis and its international partners.
#### *A LEGACY OF WISDOM, CHARACTER, AND PROGRESS*
Those who have had the privilege of knowing and working with Amb. Dr. Amadi point to his wisdom, strength of character, and passion for progress as defining qualities. Under his stewardship, initiatives focused on cultural advancement, information integrity, and cross-border collaboration have gained significant momentum.
“His leadership is not measured only in policy, but in people transformed,” said a senior official from the Ministry of Information & Culture. “He leads with clarity, compassion, and an unshakable commitment to the greater good.”
#### *HONORING YEARS LIVED AND LIVES TOUCHED*
On this auspicious occasion, tributes are pouring in from diplomatic circles, civil society, and the private sector, honoring not just the years he has lived, but the lives he has touched, the legacy he is building, and the greatness that lies ahead.
From youth mentorship to international alliances, Amb. Dr. Amadi’s influence extends beyond titles. His work continues to shape discourse around sovereign dignity, cultural heritage, and responsible leadership in the 21st century.
#### *STATEMENT FROM THE OFFICE OF THE DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER*
While no formal statement has been issued by Amb. Dr. Amadi today, his office conveyed gratitude for the outpouring of goodwill and reaffirmed his dedication to the mandate of service entrusted to him by the United Kingdom of Atlantis and its citizens worldwide.
#### *ABOUT AMB. DR. BEN U.W. AMADI*
Amb. Dr. Ben U.W. Amadi serves as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Atlantis. He is widely recognized as a distinguished diplomat, strategist, and advocate for cultural and information advancement. His leadership philosophy centers on excellence, ethical governance, and building institutions that outlive individuals.
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WITH LOVE TO WAZIRI by Chief Femi Fani-Kayode
WITH LOVE TO WAZIRI by Chief Femi Fani-Kayode
“I will not respond to Kashim Shettima because he is disrespectful. I am older than him and I have more experience in governance than he does, so I will not respond to him. It is not part of our tradition in the North to disrespect elders. You cannot look at someone who is senior to you in both age and accomplishments and start taunting him. That is not our tradition, so I won’t engage with him.”- Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Wazirin Adamawa, 13th April 2026.
My dear Waziri,
You know I love you very much and have expressed admiration for your efforts from time to time over the last 36 years since I have known you.
You will recall that we first met under the auspices of the now defunct September Club in 1989.
You attended our meeting as a mentee and loyalist of the late and great General Shehu Musa Yar’adua who we all reverred, loved and admired. It was a great event and those of us that hosted you and the General, despite being so young at the time, learnt so much from his wisdom and experience and your unalloyed and abiding devotion and loyalty towards him which was glaring for all to see.
Despite that, I am constrained to write the following.
With the utmost respect and in spite of your cultural sensitivities permit me to remind you of the following and to offer some unsolicited counsel.
You said you cannot answer Vice President Kashim Shettima because he is disrespectful and because you are older and far more experienced than him.
That is strange coming from you because I seem to recall that between 1999 and 2007 when we were in power you openly insulted, disrespected and led a full scale rebellion and unrelenting mutiny against President Obasanjo who was not only your boss and our leader but who also had far more working experience than you and was much older.
The only reason you cannot answer Kashim is because you have nothing to say, you have no answer to his challenge and finally, unlike you ever were or could be, he is totally and completely loyal to his principal and our leader President Tinubu.
As Vice President you could not find the courage to do same. As a matter of fact from day one of the 8 years that you were VP till the day we left office you were plotting to remove OBJ from his seat with the help of other dissidents and make yourself President. What could be more disrespectful than that to an elder or anyone else.
I am a living witness to the whole thing and I am pleased to say that you failed.
Please do not invoke age and experience as a reason for not responding to others when they criticise you. You forfeited that right long ago.
It takes courage and character to be loyal. Kashim has that courage and character but you never did.
Outside of this I wish you well in your endeavours sir and I hope and pray that you can resolve the grave challenges you are facing in your party so that you can meet us in the field of battle and we can trounce you at the polls in 2027.
Permit me to conclude with the following observations.
You said the following to Charles Aniagolu of Arise Television yesterday:
“I know Goodluck Jonathan very well, he is a decent young man but also inexperienced, which contributed to his failure to manage the affairs of the country”.
You refer to a man that has lived on the earth for 68 years and that has had the privilege of not just enjoying the position you once attained as Vice President but also went further than you to become President as a “young man”?
I am astounded by the sheer arrogance of your words.
This is all the more so given the fact that you are only 11 years older than him if reports about your age are to be believed.
You went further by saying that Jonathan was “inexperienced” and “he failed”?
You forgot that during Jonathan’s time Nigeria had the fastest growing economy on the African continent and did so much more but I leave it to his former Government officials and Ministers to defend his record in public office and prevent you from distorting and revising history and attempting to rubbish that record.
What I will say though, as the Director of Jonathan’s Media Presidential Campaign Organisation in 2015, is that he was a loyal Vice President to President Umaru Yar’adua and that he never betrayed his principal, coveted the latters office or tried to rubbish his legacy.
I can also attest to the fact that he was not only humane, gentle, restrained, kind and compassionate to a fault as a leader but that he also did his very best as President at a difficult time when bombs were being dropped all over the North in order to discredit and destroy him and his Government by the usual suspects just as they are attempting to do to Tinubu today in an attempt to bring him down.
Jonathan also displayed virtues of leadership and decency towards his followers the likes of which you cannot possibly imagine, match or emulate.
Through thick and thin even during the most challenging years when many of us faced savage and unrelenting persecution he abandoned none and he stuck by his friends and supporters which is more than I can say for most leaders.
These qualities cannot be taken away from him by anyone, least of all your goodself.
When a man that is incapable of trust, loyalty or fidelity runs down a man like Jonathan who embodies and epitomises all three it is not only painful but also unacceptable and even if the whole world sits by quietly and allows you to get away with it I will not.
I am glad that the Center for Responsible Governance (CRG) responded to you effectively on this issue and defended the honor of Jonathan and I subscribe to all that they said in their communique. I commend them and I salute their courage.
Most important of all is the fact that Jonathan had the courage and decency to walk away from power and hand it to President Buhari on a platter of gold after he lost the election in 2015.
If nothing else you must at least commend him for that.
Given your obsession with power and craving for it, I wonder whether you would have done the same.
It is obvious that despite all your efforts to cobble your platform together you are already anticipating a crushing defeat in next years election and your grave fears and desperate disposition are betrayed by the words you spoke at your so-called party Convention a few days ago where you said the following.
“It is clear that INEC is being used in this country. Let the Federal Government know that we fought the military to bring democracy to this country and we will f!ght the Federal Government to restore democracy.”
You can smell your defeat coming and you know that your ambition to be President of our country is slowly melting away like an iceberg that is approaching the tropics.
Like the mighty ship they called the Titanic your ambitions are about to crash and sink and you are already looking for excuses and threatening fire and brimstone.
Please do those of us that care for you and that respect you a favour by learning to lose with dignity and accepting the virtue of humility because all power comes from God.
When you lose, and lose you will, it will not be because of INEC but because you are running against a man that is far better than you in every shape and form and every way and manner.
It is also because God resists the proud and exalts the humble.
Please leave INEC out of it and prepare to accept the failure that is your portion and that is coming your way.
As for your threats to “fight the Federal Government” when the inevitable happens I can only say that good luck to you and advise you that at your distinguished old age you should know far better.
Whichever way I doubt anyone is losing any sleep over your threats because your assertions and allegations against INEC are not only baseless but also utterly (forgive me for using these words) asinine and nonsensical.
Outside of that they are also very dangerous and may affect the stability and peace of our nation which is precisely what you are attempting to achieve.
I advise you to desist from this reckless course sir and shun those around you that are advising you to tread it because it will not augur well for you or for them.
You are a respected democrat and not a lawless anarchist who seeks to scatter the entire table and pull down the entire house simply because you cannot have your way.
That is not you and you are far better than that. When you lose, kindly take it in good faith, move on and either try again in 2031 or retire from politics accepting that God never intended you to be President.
There is absolutely no shame in that because you have already achieved so much and established a strong and enviable legacy.
Please do not destroy it all out of blind ambition and the desire to get what God has chosen not to give you.
Nigeria has been good to you. Please do not try to set her on fire.
Back to the point.
My dear Waziri, both Kashim Shettima and Goodluck Jonathan were loyal to their bosses and you were incapable of doing the same.
That is where the story begins and ends. Ambition is like a drug that blinds and kills slowly.
I am sorry to say that this affliction has seized you since 1993 and appears to have become even more pronounced today otherwise you would not even dream of opposing the candidacy of President Bola Tinubu after all he did for you over the years after you were driven out of the PDP for your treacher in tatters and disgrace in 2014.
Both the late President Muhammadu Buhari and Tinubu housed you in their new party at the time, rehabilitated you and gave you a new lease of political life only for you to leave them, go back to PDP and oppose them by running against their party for the Presidency six years later in 2019.
Not only that, after you lost the 2019 election you thoroughly destroyed the same PDP that took you back, forgave you and gave you a platform to run on by dividing the party along regional, religious and ethnic lines.
You violated and destroyed its zoning formula by insisting that its presidential candidate (which of course had to be your goodself) must again come from the North in 2023 and you attempted to truncate, destroy and bury the aspirations, political career and trajectory of men like Governor Nyesome Wike who had not only funded the party for years but had welcomed you back into its ranks with open arms in 2017 and supported you for the Presidency in 2019.
Forgive me for saying so but loyalty and commitment to a collective and common cause does not appear to be your forte sir.
The Bible says “He who repays good with evil, evil will never leave his house”.
I do not wish you or yours evil but kindly consider this.
Both Goodluck and Kashim repaid their boss’s good with good whilst you repaid your boss Obasanjo’s good with evil and that is precisely why they have risen and will continue to rise to greater heights than you ever will.
Finally in the same interview with Charles Aniagolu you said the following about your colleagues in your factional ADC party.
“Kwankwaso, El Rufai and Tambuwal are not as popular as I am”.
Again forgive me for saying so but the truth is that you have displayed such a lack of humility, such arrogance and such a glaring display of hubris with these words.
I wonder how those three names you mentioned all feel about what you have said about their popularity or lack of it.
Clearly this is the beginning of the disintegration of the ADC.
By the time this is all over you may well end up having ten factions in your party and not just three.
One thing is clear in all this and that is the fact that you sir are loyal to your ambition and to no-one and nothing else.
It is only a matter of time before your new found friends in the ADC appreciate that and see you for who and what you really are.
I come in peace and I wish you well sir.
(Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, the author of this essay, is an Ambassador Designate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, a former Minister of Aviation, a former Minister of Culture and Tourism, a former Special Advisor to President Olusegun Obasanjo on Public Affairs, the Sadaukin Shinkafi, the Wakilin Doka Potiskum, the Otunba of Joga Orile, the Aare Ajagunla of Otun Ekiti and a Legal Practioner)
celebrity radar - gossips
‘Mojoyin Fadaka: A Quietly Rising Voice in Nollywood*
*Mojoyin Fadaka: A Quietly Rising Voice in Nollywood*
Since her debut in 2023, Mojoyin Fadaka has been carving out a steady path in Nollywood—one defined less by noise and more by intention. Rather than chasing visibility, she focuses on growth, craft, and understanding the depth of each role she takes on.
Trained at Del York Creative Academy and KAP Film and Television Academy, Mojoyin built her foundation on discipline as much as talent. For her, acting is not just performance but preparation and emotional awareness—an approach that continues to shape her work across film and television.
Her growing filmography includes titles such as *Instead Of Love*, *Crazy Wives*, *Campus Queen*, *The Last Paycheck*, and *Between The Rails*. Across these projects, she has worked with respected figures in the industry while steadily expanding her range and screen presence.
Beyond acting, Mojoyin also explores storytelling through writing, a passion that influences how she interprets characters. She is drawn to roles that feel authentic and meaningful, avoiding shallow portrayals in favor of emotional depth and purpose.
Her versatility is further strengthened by her ability to perform in English, Yoruba, and Pidgin, with ongoing efforts to learn Igbo. She is also developing physical skills like boxing and swimming to broaden her adaptability for future roles.
Influenced by performers such as Viola Davis and Kehinde Bankole, Mojoyin describes her approach as instinctive—focused on allowing emotion rather than forcing it.
As Nollywood continues to expand, she remains focused on consistency over pressure, growth over speed. For Mojoyin Fadaka, the journey is not about rushing ahead, but building something lasting—one role at a time.
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