I joined APC so Buhari can protect Zamfara from bandits, Matawalle suggests

Zamfara governor Bello Matawalle says he believes the issue of insecurity in the state will be effectively dealt with now that he has joined the All Progressives Congress (APC). 

Matawalle defected to the APC on Tuesday.

Speaking on the Osasu Show programme on Friday, Matawalle noted that with his defection to the ruling party, the state will enjoy the dividends of democracy.

The governor also said his defection from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the APC is nothing out of the ordinary, adding that Zamfara will experience growth as a result of his decision.

“The issue of security is not just for APC or PDP. We have to put all hands on deck so that we can solve that problem,” he said.

“Politics is about interest and confidence. Many of the politicians have changed from one party to another, so it is not a new thing and I decided to change so that I can bring more peace to my state.

“We have achieved tremendous successes, particularly on the issue of banditry where we used kinetic and non-kinetic approaches. These approaches we used, in particular — dialogue — it worked but you know that even with the approach of dialogue, we have to bring a political solution to it.

“So, I want to make sure that during this my tenure, I’ll bring everybody in the state together under one basket; that we should forget our political differences, work together, try to bring more peace to the state.

“This is a ruling party where we have the senate, members of the house of representatives. We are stronger and I believe people will benefit more than before. Where my hand does not reach before, now I can get what I want.

“I believe with this coming together, I’m going to work hard with my other colleagues so that we can get more from the federal government, particularly on the issue of insecurity. Even before I decamped, I knew the arrangement Mr president had made to bring more equipment to our security agencies to fight the criminality in the northern region.

“I believe we will get more troops to come and flush out the criminals. I assure you that you’ll see a lot of changes, because we will get more improvement on each facility that we have.”

He also expressed hope that within the next three months, Zamfara would have undergone “a lot of tremendous changes”.