By Omoniyi Salaudeen
Nigerians are still in shock over the alleged mismanagement of funds in the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation and its sister agency, the National Social Investment Programme Agency (NSIPA).
The two dramatis personae allegedly involved in the saga have since been sent on suspension by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to allow for through investigation into the matter by the Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
While the National Coordinator and Chief Executive Officer of NSIPA, Halima Shehu, saddled with the responsibility of disbursement of conditional cash transfer to the vulnerable poor, was put on suspension for alleged diversion of N30 billion from the coffers of the agency into some private accounts, the minister in charge of Humanitarian Affairs, Dr Betta Edu, got the boot for issuing a memo directing the Accountant General of the Federal, Oluwatoyin Madein, to transfer N585 million into a private account owned by one Oniyelu Bridget believed to be the Project Accountant, Grants for Vulnerable Groups. Though the AGF declined the request, the money still found its way into a private account through the order of the embattled minister.
The leaked memo written to that effect reads in part: “I hereby approve the payment of the cumulative sum of N585, 189, 500. These are payments for programme and activities of the Renewed Hope grant for vulnerable groups.
“This payment should be made from the National Social Investment Office account with account number: 0020208461037 to the project accountant’s details above.”
According to the letter, “N219,429, 750 was earmarked as 2023 Grant for Vulnerable Groups in Akwa Ibom State”, N73, 828, 750 was budgeted for Cross River State, N219,462, 250 for Lagos State and N72, 468, 750 for Ogun State respectively.
While the EFCC has commenced a probe into the matter, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Abel Olumuyiwa Enitan, has taken charge of the affairs of the ministry in place of the suspended minister.
The development followed another N37.1 billion allegedly laundered under the former Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya, Umar-Farouk, in the immediate past administration of ex-President Muhammadu Buhari.
The reticent erstwhile Minister has also been invited by the EFCC to answer to some of the questions bordering on the mismanagement of the staggering sum of money meant to cater for the poorest of the poor in the country.
For most conscientious Nigerians, this distressing narrative negates the “let the poor breathe” mantra of President Tinubu, whose audacious reform policies have made life more difficult for the ordinary people than ever before.
At the time Tinubu made the declaration during the last presidential campaigns, it was presumably meant to appeal to the conscience of the authorities in power to evolve a workable policy that would give a new leash of life to the poor.
Having been inaugurated as president, the event of the recent past does not show that the message resonated among his cabinet members despite the repeated mouthing of the Renewed Hope agenda of his administration.
Some cynics are even beginning to raise questions as to whether the right of the vulnerable to breathe has not been finally compromised.
The worrisome problem is that Nigeria has not only become the poverty capital of the world, but the vast majority of its people now combine all the characteristics of a vicious circle of poverty: deprivation, vulnerability, hopelessness, powerlessness, and loss of dignity. Like the tempest poor, no money, no food, no dignity.
While successive governments have made the pursuit of poverty alleviation and eradication part of their over-arching objectives, there has been no tangible result to justify the humongous amount of money that has been sunk into the various programmes of action.
At the advent of the present democratic dispensation, former President Olusegun Obasanjo launched the campaign for poverty eradication with N10 billion in 2000.
The irony of it all is that while the fund has continued to grow in leaps and bound, Buhari, who made the highest investment of N2.38 trillion between 2020 and 2023 in the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management, and Social Development to fight the scorch, only found a woman who has a deficit trust and lacking the requisite knowledge worthy of appointment as a minister to manage the ministry and the procedure for cash disbursement.
Not surprisingly, over the past five years of the establishment of the ministry, all its activities have been dogged by one controversy or the other, bordering on gross mismanagement of funds. For instance, Farouk startled the nation when she declared the staggering amount of money allegedly spent on school feeding during the COVID-19 lockdown. Despite the hues and cries that ensued, obstinate ex-President Buhari, whose attribute it is, to delegate responsibility without asking for accountability, turned deaf ears. The result is the ongoing scandal that is rocking the ministry. And that may be a tip of the iceberg.
Following his assumption of office and the subsequent removal of fuel subsidy along with the unification of foreign exchange differentials, President Tinubu had promised that his government would provide palliatives to the vulnerable to mitigate the effects of his harsh economic reform initiatives. That may not come so soon, as he has just ordered a probe into the affairs of the ministry.
For its trust deficit, the ministry is now grappling with an existential dilemma with some stakeholders already urging the Federal Government to scrap it and do a review of the ongoing poverty reduction strategy.
Chief Chekwas Okorie, while lamenting the mindboggling scenario in the ministry in a telephone chat with Sunday Sun, unequivocally declared: “My recommendation is that that ministry should be scrapped completely because the amount of money involved in the looting spree could be deployed in different ways to benefit the people better than what they have been doing there. It is a conduit pipe for people to siphon money. I do not doubt the fact that President Tinubu means well and I have no doubt that he must be having sleepiness nights with what is happening in that ministry. There are saboteurs among the people he appointed, he needs our prayers. But prayers won’t be enough because prayer without hard work is useless.”Okorie blamed the entrenched corruption in the system on former President Buhari whose intention for creating the ministry, he noted, was pure political reason.
His words: “Unfortunately, people entrusted with public funds and critical government investments like palliatives for the vulnerable are mindlessly and brazenly frittering away, stealing and looting the money meant for the poor. There is no difference between the previous Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and the present one. The only difference is in the amount of money looted.
“It is so shocking to hear of the huge amount frittered away within five months of the appointment of that young lady, Dr Betta Edu. To me, it is a major embarrassment to the women folk and the youths.
“What made me sad is the involvement of the company in which the minister of interior, Bunmi-Ojo, has an interest. This is a man who has almost revolutionized that ministry in terms of service delivery within a very short time of his appointment. If you asked me before now, I would tell you that he is among the high-ranking performing ministers. To have a company he has an interest in getting involved in this kind of looting spree is very disappointing. It doesn’t matter that he has resigned from the board; his interest cannot be wished away.
“These are young people who are young enough to be our children. And now they are behaving in this manner. What does the future hold for the country, if the people we groom to take over the leadership are the ones exhibiting this type of greed? It is something that worries every elder statesman in Nigeria. The future is so bleak.
“Former President Buhari set up that ministry for political reasons. It was not with the good intention to reach out to the vulnerable. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo had already started doing something about TraderMoni and other initiatives which they copied from India when Buhari came back from abroad after a 100-day medical leave and removed all of those activities from his office and created the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and then brought in Sadiya Farouk who does not have governance experience to head it.
“So, I am not surprised that she did what she did because she was given a free hand to do what she liked. It was that same arrangement Edu met and capitalized on it. She simply followed what her predecessor had done.”
A former chairman of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos State, Tunji Shelle, while also condemning the unbridled corruption that resulted in the reckless looting of the money meant for the poor, called for the scrapping of the ministry and diversion of conditional cash transfer funds to other productive purposes that could open economic opportunities for the vulnerable segment of the society.
He said: “I think Nigeria is not ready for democracy. Neither are we ready to take care of the poor. All these monies they are attaching to the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs can be used to build industry or develop agriculture. A lot of it can go into the educational sector and research and development.
“That ministry should be scrapped. During Buhari’s regime, this particular assignment or policy was under the office of the Vice President. Probably because they didn’t like his face in that administration, they withdrew some of his powers, his staff and then created a ministry and gave it to a woman to manage. Since five years ago, Nigerians have not seen anything credible about that ministry. They claim they have been sharing money among the poorest of the poor. I have not seen anybody that has claimed that a member of his family has benefitted from that programme. So, why are we deceiving ourselves?
“Unfortunately, that ministry has become a place for siphoning money for people of easy virtues. If you want to create a ministry that is workable and dependable to render service to the people, you put people of integrity there. But that is not the case here. Instead, the characters we have seen are people of easy virtues, hustlers, and nightclub people who only believe in sharing money without doing anything. That ministry should be scrapped. If they want to help the poorest of the poor, let them create farms, put water and generators there, people will stay there to work and the produce from there will come to the township for people to buy. All this money-sharing cannot help anybody.”
In a similar vein, a renowned Niger Delta woman activist, Ankio Briggs, urged President Tinubu to put the ministry on hold pending the outcome of the ongoing investigation by the EFCC.
She fumed: “As an interested party, I think this stealing and looting from the poor is disgraceful. It is unbelievable; it is shameful and mindboggling. It is an embarrassing situation we have found ourselves. You have people who call themselves honourable, but are so dishonourable. It is so disgraceful that a woman who is supposed to be a mother can do this type of thing.
“Nigeria has the worst poverty index in the world. And yet, we have people whose main business is to steal from the poor, steal from the children, steal from the unborn, and even from the disabled. It’s unbelievable. This is what people like us have been saying for a very long time we have people in power that have no conscience. I think you have to have a heart of stone to go into politics. If you don’t have a heart of stone and want to do well, they will kick you out of politics.
“Sometimes you see women who look pretty and yet their hearts are that of the devil. Mind you, the former minister before the newly suspended one had done the same thing. It is a pity that Nigeria does not have a system or mechanism to take care of the vulnerable poor in our society. These are the people who impoverish the society. What do they know about humanitarian affairs? They just set up that ministry to steal. That ministry came on board during COVID-19 and you could see what they did at that time. Because they know that the poor are too weak to fight for themselves, they do what they like and get away with it. It is everybody’s responsibility to speak against this evil and expose it.
“They are completely heartless; they should all be in jail. Just the way they put the poor in jail without investigating them, they should all be put in jail. I don’t even know why the suspended minister should be given bail. Has she explained the reason behind the looting spree?
“Going by the record of that ministry, it is nothing for the poor. So, it should be put on hold until all investigations have been concluded and the people responsible for the looting are put in jail to serve as a deterrent to others. No matter who they are, they should go to jail. They should put that ministry on hold and do all the investigations necessary so that people who are found to be culpable can be taken to the court of law where they will be judged and sentenced to jail. If that is not done, the government will be deceiving us and also deceiving itself.”
Whatever the intention behind the creation of the ministry, it already has a trust deficit. Only the outcome of the ongoing investigation can exonerate the ousted minister and her colleague in the sister agency (NSIPA).
But beyond the investigation, any individual found to be culpable in the current scandal should be made to face the music. What is encouraging the embezzlement of public funds is the perceived lack of significant consequences for the offenders. There must be a paradigm shift if the government is serious about changing the present narrative.