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In response to public outcry, President Ahmed Bola Tinubu has suspended his controversial minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, Betta Edu, over allegations of financial impropriety bordering on the use of private bank accounts for public expenditure. In a leaked memo, Minister Edu directed the Accountant General of the Federation, Oluwatoyin Madein, to transfer N585 million to the private account of one Oniyelu Bridget, an act that contravenes financial regulations and conducts for ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) of the federal government, which prohibits the use of private accounts for government business.
Interestingly, there was what could best be described as arrogance of ignorance of the rules and regulations of financial conduct of MDAs by the 37 years old medical doctor from Cross River State, whose meteoric rise to national political prominence was facilitated by her godfather, former governor of her state, Ben Ayade. Ayade first appointed Betta as commissioner for health and later nominated her for the position of national women leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) going into the 2023 general election. She leveraged her position as the leader of the women’s wing of APC to endear herself to the President and his inner cycle of powerful associates and protégés to eventually displace Ayade, her benefactor, for the ministerial slot of Cross River State in the Tinubu administration.
Betta’s appointment as Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management did not come to many as a surprise because the ministry, which is considered one of the ‘’juiciest,’’ is often reserved for powerful female politicians with personal ties to the powers that be since its creation in 2019. As a matter of speculation, many Nigerians believe that the ministry was created to compensate Sadiyya Umar Farouq, a long-standing ally and close associate of President Muhammadu Buhari, who appointed her its first minister.
However, the ministry, which was created to attend to humanitarian needs of Nigerians and manage disaster, has been a disaster and anything but humanitarian. As a lazy way out of the serious challenges of heightened poverty, hunger and general socio-economic deterioration in the living condition of Nigerians, the Buhari administration, rather than put in the hard work of integrated economic development of Nigeria and its people, decided to create a ministry that would serve as a poster of its efforts at poverty allievation to divert attention from its acute failings.
The ministry became ‘’Grade A’’ and ‘’Juicy’’ when the various social intervention programmes, including school feeding, N-Power monthly stipends, conditional cash transfer schemes, etc, were collapse under it with hundreds of billions of naira as annual budget. Thus began what has gone down in history as one of Nigeria’s most fraudulent forms of administration buffoonery in recent times, which eventually became a cesspool of corruption and waste of public resources.
So massive was the waste and corruption in the ministry that its former minister, Sadiyya, is facing a probe of alleged mismanagement of over N37 billion during her time in office. And about the same time that the former minister was reporting to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to face interrogation over this massive heist in her ministry, Betta happened on the Humanitarian ministry. In between, Halima Shehu, the national coordinator of the National Social Investment Programme Agency, was sacked for allegedly embezzling about N40 billion of monies meant for the “poor” and “indigent” in Nigeria.
While President Tinubu has taken the right decision to suspend the minister from office to allow for thorough investigation of the circumstances surrounding the “Betta Affair,” the continuous existence of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management as well as all other social intervention agencies should be reconsidered, going forward. Apart from being ineffectual and prone to corruption, Nigeria, a heavily indebted, cash-strapped country of over 100 million poor, pauperized and traumatized people, cannot solve its poverty problem with conditional cash transfer of N20,000 to fewer than 1 per cent of the people in need of assistance. It’s a wasteful, unsustainable and corruption-prone financial burden that government cannot continue to fund, as most of the intended beneficiaries do not benefit from these schemes beyond what is written on paper.
Nigeria does not have data infrastructure to generate a credible social register just as it does not have the financial wherewithal to adequately cater for the basic needs of its over 100 million poor people. The Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, along the various social intervention agencies of the federal government, have become a waste of public funds that the government can no longer afford to continue and should be scrapped. A country such as Nigeria will not overcome its problem of poverty through tokenism of having a poster ministry that disburses paltry sums of money as droplets in an ocean of poverty. To pull Nigerians out of poverty, it will require the hard work of transforming Nigeria into a producting economy that is export-competitive, through investments in energy security, education security and food securing within the frame of national security of lives and properties of Nigerians.
