Allegations of graft and cabinet members stealing from the poor are pointers to where President Bola Tinubu should begin the housecleaning task of tackling the corruption monster ravaging all facets of national life, TINA ABEKU reports.

The past weeks have been a roller coaster for Nigeria as allegations and counter allegations of fraud in the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation puff the air. These allegations, which date back to the pioneer minister in the ministry, Sadiya Umar-Farouq, to the current suspended minister, Dr Betta Edu, revealed a slew of financial misappropriations that tainted the image of the immediate past administration and implicated the present government.

Following public outcry, President Bola Tinubu had to suspend the National Coordinator and Chief Executive Officer of the National Social Investment Programme Agency (NSIPA), Halima Shehu and the minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Edu.

Uncovering the sleaze started with the allegation of financial misappropriation of N44.8 billion levelled against the National Coordinator and Chief Executive Officer of the NSIPA, Halima Shehu, by the now-suspended minister, Edu, which led to Shehu’s suspension to pave the way for proper investigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Consequently, more allegations of fraud surfaced, threatening to sweep away more ministers and other top government officials, and tainting the image of those in the President’s cabinet even as his government professes zero tolerance for corruption.

Edu is being investigated by the EFCC on allegations of breach of due process in the award of contracts worth N3 billion, which were allegedly awarded to her cronies. A leaked memo also indicated that the minister approved flight fares for staff to Kogi, a state without an airport.

She is also being interrogated by the EFCC for the approval of the payment of N585 million in another leaked memo meant as grants for vulnerable groups in five states into a private account. The account allegedly belonged to a supposed project accounting staff in the ministry.

Commentators believe the minister’s action was in clear breach of extant public service law as contained in Chapter 7, Section 713 of the financial regulation, which states that, “personal money shall in no circumstances be paid into a government bank account, nor shall any public money be paid into a private account.”

Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN) stressed that Edu’s action with regards to the N585 million contravenes the financial regulation.

But Edu defended her action in a statement by her Special Assistant on Media, Rasheed Zubair, saying disgruntled elements sponsored the allegations against her. He said those elements, in the past few days, have been trying to smear the Minister and stain her integrity because she alerted the government on the ongoing N44.8 billion fraud in NSIPA.

“These elements have been trying to link her to a phantom fraud and are behind this latest misadventure. The evil motive of the mischief-makers behind the circulation of the memo is well-known and should be ignored,” Zubair said.

Founder of Africans in Diaspora for Good Legislation, Ameh Ejeh, believes that a lot of those implicated in the scandal are guilty.

Ejeh advocated capital punishment for any public officeholder found guilty of fraud as a deterrent to others. He opined that nothing would come out of the EFCC investigation at the end of the day, charging the anti-graft agency to roll up its sleeves to prove doubters wrong.

He lamented the brazen manner public office holders embezzle public funds and later use the same funds to hire lawyers and sponsor different groups to speak in their defence, employing all sorts of tricks including using ethnicity, outright political mudslinging and religion to arouse public sympathy.

“I don’t think we are going to see anything meaningful come out of this. They allocate billions of Naira to frivolous projects and corner the resources to themselves in a country where people are suffering.

“Instead of tackling security, corruption and work for the welfare of the citizenry, they engage in graft. Of course, you can’t fight corruption when you come in through corruption.

“When you manipulate elections and win with the support of an equally corrupt judiciary, the people that emerge out of these processes are the same ones appointing these individuals to serve in these capacities. Therefore, we cannot expect anything good from an already tainted process,” Ejeh said.

A source in the humanitarian ministry, who sought anonymity, told The Guardian that the minister was able to get away with some of her alleged illegal actions because of her strong connection with Aso Rock cabals.

According to the source, Edu allegedly brought in her medical doctor friends and appointed them as heads of various agencies under the ministry instead of appointing individuals already working within the humanitarian space.

All these were happening at a time when the EFCC is on the heels of the former minister of the same poverty alleviation ministry, Sadiya Umar-Farooq, for money laundering allegations to the tune of N37.1 billion under her watch while in office.

The next person to be rattled by the corruption deals is the minister of interior, Dr Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, who is also linked to the cabals. He was soon implicated in the corruption melee when his company was discovered to be among those that benefited from contracts issued by his counterpart, Edu, under unclear circumstances.

Although Tunji-Ojo claims to have nothing to do with the company because he has resigned, pundits have cited a conflict of interest in the matter, insisting that because his wife is a director of the company he founded, he cannot distance himself from the allegations that he fell afoul of public service code of conduct.

In the wake of these allegations, Tunji-Ojo has been invited by the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCD). Although the minister is said to have asked to be allowed to come at a later date, speculations are rife that the invitation may not be unconnected to the contracts.

Many believe that events took a turn for the worse following the uncovering of N37.17 billion laundered fund through the ministry and Umar-Farouk has already been named in corruption allegations bordering on her handling of the conditional cash transfer meant as relief for vulnerable Nigerians during the COVID-19 period.

In addition, there was a scandal trailing the school feeding programme she supervised when children were not in school during the lockdown. Billions were spent with no clear verified beneficiaries before she left office.

The humanitarian ministry was created in 2019, specifically to better the lives of poor and vulnerable Nigerians through a social protection system that effectively coordinates national and international interventions. Another of its functions is humanitarian crisis intervention. Still, so far, the ministry and its agencies have succeeded in getting enmeshed in colossal fraud allegations, counter-allegations and mindless squandering of public funds.

These monies, according to the EFCC were laundered under the erstwhile minister, who is currently being investigated by the anti-grant agency to explain her role in the disappearance of the funds and to help trail more monies believed to have been misappropriated under her watch.

Observers have also said that the four-year-old ministry now has a reputation for guzzling cash through unclear means and unaccounted-for projects even as Nigerians get poorer, suffocated by growing economic hardship and therefore, should be scrapped.

Fred Nzeakor, a lawyer, however, argued that it would be wrong to scrap the ministry. “I will not join the public to call for the scrapping of the ministry, because its creation was for a good purpose, which is to touch the poorest of the poor and those who are suffering on account of one disaster or the other.

“By its name, it is the ministry of humanitarian services and disaster management, but those who were ministers from inception have turned it to disaster ministry and that is why people have lost confidence in that ministry and are asking that it be scrapped,” he said.

Nzeakor, however, said the corruption issue should be tackled by punishing those who are found culpable in the ministry and any other ministry in the country. Stressing that the ministries have become a cesspit of fraud, corruption and mismanagement of public funds, the lawyer called for a probe into the affairs of ministers who served under President Muhammadu Buhari’s government.

He explained that no matter how lofty an economy is, there will always be the poor to be taken care of, arguing that even if the poor were not considered, natural or man-made disasters would always occur as evidenced in the crisis of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) that arose out of insurgency.

As Nigerians eagerly await the results of investigations by the EFCC, they hope that it will not be one of many such scandals swept under the carpet.