The Minister of State for Defence, Dr Bello Matawalle has been honoured with the Legendary Commando Award of Distinction for Counter-Banditry and National Peace Enforcement.
The honour which was accorded the Minister at the 18th Nigerian Media Niteout Awards held on Sunday November 24th at the Airport Hotel in Lagos and was anchored by popular TV broadcast journalist and publisher, Dr. Champion O. Michael.
Receiving the award on his behalf, the immediate past Commissioner of Information in Zamfara State, Mr Ibrahim Dosara, who spoke shortly after he received the award, observed with delight that it has been a consistent honor to his principal.
According to the former Commissioner of Information in Zamfara, it’s an indication that he is doing very well in his areas of responsibility as assigned by the President.
Mr Dosara was very happy and was so glad to talk to journalists on behalf of the Minister, His Excellency Dr. Bello Matawalle. In fact the Honorable Minister’s representative, added that it was a thing of pride.
He expressed optimism, that the award would serve as a source of inspiration, encouragement to the Honorable Minister to continue with what he has been doing as assigned to him by the President, he said.
Answering questions on what has been the magical wand and the kind of synergy among all security heads collaborating together to fight insecurity in the country, the Minister representative said, the honorable minister has been in the cycle of security since when he was in the House of Representatives.
He further remarked, that the Minister was the Chairman of the House Committee on Intelligence and Security while serving as a member of the House of Representatives, and that has given him broad scale knowledge to know the nitty gritty of Nigeria’s security architecture.
Consequently that gives him the leverage to know the in and out of intelligence work; and in addition to orchestrating innovative ways of how to organize security.
Furthermore, he was a governor in Zamfara State, a state he seriously fought with banditry, to the extent that he left the state better than he met it, and consequently he was elevated to occupy the enviable office of the Minister of State for Defense, Nigeria and he has been performing excellently since his appointment.
The Minister recently led the security forces to the North West,where one of the most dangerous and the most notorious banditry helmsman, Halilu Sububu was eliminated, along with his top commanders, and their foot soldiers.
Not only that, Dr. Bello Matawalle also led the crusade towards haunting the most dangerous armed bandits in the North West, leading to the elimination of many of them.
He has been able to organize the Ministry of Defense to run in such a way that they worked, along with the other ministries harmoniously.
Furthermore, he also set a motion for all agencies to work together harmoniously to achieve Mr. President’s agenda on security.
It is worthy of note that Honourable Matawalle was recently delegated by the President to go to Saudi Arabia to meet with other regional leaders to sort out and fine tune ways of dealing with terrorism along the African and Asian states.
Speaking further on the fast approaching yuletide season, the former Commissioner of Information reassured Nigerians to expect a season free of crisis as the security agencies are working round the clock to secure every part of the country.
He encouraged his professional colleagues to always practice the profession as provided by the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the code of ethics of the journalism profession.
In his own words, “It’s pertinent to note that the media plays a very important role in the peace and tranquility of the society, if Nigeria (our country) is to live in peace with each other, the media is expected to play a very vital role in this aspect.
“I urge those media practitioners, who allow themselves to be used by some unscrupulous politicians in causing conflict within the society, to desist from such obnoxious acts and play their roles professionally as expected”, he concluded.
