Police, SSS arrest Matawalle’s aide for gunrunning, smuggling, money laundering

Bashir Hadeija, a close aide to Nigeria’s junior minister of defence, Bello Matawalle, has been arrested for alleged gunrunning and smuggling of large caches of weapons, following multiple intel by a combined team of the police and the State Security Services, Peoples Gazette learnt.

Mr Hadeija, who was a special assistant to Mr Bello while serving as governor of Zamfara State, was arrested over the weekend and is also accused of money laundering and other transnational crimes against the government.

The suspect, currently in custody of the security operatives and facing interrogation over his involvement in multiple crimes, is also accused of being involved in aiding terrorism and other forms of criminality in the northern part of the country.

Shortly after his arrest, video footage showed Mr Hadejia displaying bars of ‘Gold’ inscribed with the status of a former de facto leader of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi.

The Gazette could not immediately get the reactions of both the police and SSS spokesmen over the arrest of Mr Hadeija, but different security sources in the intelligence units, who confirmed his arrest, said he was still in custody and undergoing interrogation.

However, Mr Hadeija’s arrest has been generating reactions amid links with high-profile and prominent politicians, including Mr Matawalle, amid escalating security challenges in the northeast part of the country.

With the insecurity in the North, last month, a notorious terrorism kingpin, Bello Turji, accused Mr Matawalle of allegedly empowering terrorists when he was governor of Zamfara State.

Mr Turji, who operates in the North-West and North-Central, had in a video on July 18 argued that the policy of the Nigeria junior defence minister was the reason insecurity continued to escalate in Zamfara and other northwestern states.

Between 2019 and 2023, Mr Matawalle, before he was appointed minister, initiated an amnesty scheme that provided financial rewards and protection for bandits who surrendered their arms. But Mr Turji claimed that the failed deal merely empowered some of his colleagues, noting that many of them moved back to the cities from where they command bandits operating in the bush.