Npower: Betta Edu And Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo Yet To Be Arrested
According to Npower without concluding the investigation of suspended minister for Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation Betta Edu, and publishing its reports, lessons learned, and corrective actions taken, the Minister of Finance, Wale Edun, announced the expansion of the conditional cash program to 12,000,000,000 Nigerians from the previous 3,000,000. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s government is moving on as if nothing happened. But something horrendous happened.
According to Npower, since its inception, the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation has been a centre of corruption. Political leaders always put their favored subordinates there to expedite the embezzlement of public funds. And there were lots of public funds to loot.
According to Npower, the National Social Investment Program Agency (NSIPA) was launched in 2016 with a $500,000,000 World Bank loan. Later, the Nigerian government added $1,300,000,000.
What Betta Edu did when she became the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation was to upgrade the embezzling to power ten with so much haste that it shocked the whole system.
According to Npower, when President Bola Ahmed Tinubu took over as president, his APC's Southern cabal brought Betta Edu to the ministry to do their bidding the same way the Northern cabal had Sadiya Umar Farouk under Buhari. But knowing how lucrative the ministry for Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation was to embezzling public funds without interrogations, the northern cabal retained Ms Halima Shehu, a disciple of Sadiya Umar Farouk, as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Social Investment Program Agency (NSIPA). The northern cabal supported the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Social Investment Program Agency (NSIPA) Ms Halima Shehu, instead of Betta Edu's candidate because Halima Shehu had worked with Sadiya Umar Farouk and would protect their interest.
According to Npower, the trouble started when Betta Edu engaged in a strong disagreement with Ms Halima Shehu as soon as Betta Edu got in there and went to work, transferring public funds to personal accounts and anywhere else that would be out of reach of Halima Shehu. It was an open conflict between Betta Edu and Ms Halima Shehu. Senate President Godswill Akpabio tried to resolve the conflict but failed.
According to Npower, there was an effort to move Halima Shehu's NSIPA away from the ministry to the presidency. Still, Betta Edu fought back the way Senate President Godswill Akpabio fought back when they wanted to move the NDDC away from him when he was the Minister of the Niger Delta Affairs.
During this conflict, Betta Edu made sure that all four program managers under the ministry were from Cross Rivers. Betta Edu was ready for a fight.
According to Npower, it was this failure of Betta Edu and Ms Halima Shehu to agree on how to share the embezzled funds that led to this open disagreement that Nigerians read about. If Senate President Godswill Akpabio had settled them, we would not have known about the missing ₦75,000,000,000.
You will read nothing here that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) does not know. If the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has not responded, it is not because they need more proof to react. The only reason the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) have not responded is that those involved in the embezzlement are highly placed in the Bola Ahmed Tinubu's government. The memo signed by Bola Ahmed Tinubu's Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamilia, showed President Bola Ahmed Tinubu himself approved ₦3,000,000,000 that Betta Edu used to verify the social register.
According to Npower, if Femi Gbajabiamilia's fingers were on anything, chances are that Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo was also involved. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo helped Femi Gbajabiamilia become the House of Representatives Speaker. Femi Gbajabiamilia rewarded Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo with the powerful Chairman of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) committee in the House of Representatives. That was when Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo became known as the man who spent only dollars in Abuja. Since then, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo and Femi Gbajabiamilia have been partners in providing "excellent service" to the nation.
It was under Femi Gbajabiamilia as Speaker that Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo made the most outstanding contribution to the history of the National Assembly - "off the mic." Most people do not know that Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo ordered that the then Minister of the Niger Delta Godswill Akpabio's mic should be turned off to stop him from revealing damaging information about his Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) committee while Godswill Akpabio was testifying before Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo committee.
So, it was not surprising to anyone when Betta Edu awarded a N430,000,000 contract to Planet Projects Limited for verifying the social register. This company belonged to Interior Minister Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo. As the scandal broke, Mr. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo went to the press to defend himself, claiming that he was no longer a company director but acknowledged that his wife now runs it.
"The question should be, if the company was given a job, did they do the job?" said Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo on national TV. "Was the job validly awarded?"
It was an unbelievable display of shame. Like the chief justice of the nation, the man had no idea about conflicts of interest.
According to Npower News, Betta Edu's ministry announced that 3,500,000 poor Nigerians would receive ₦25,000 each. In the end, only 500,000 Nigerians in five states got the ₦25,000. What happened to the other ₦25,000 that should have gone to the other 3,000,000 Nigerians?
The ₦75,000,000 that should have gone to the other 3,000,000 Nigerians most likely went to the pockets of well-connected people in the ministry.
Here is how they have always done it.
The ministry for Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation will announce that it is sending some money to some people in Nigeria for empowerment, poverty alleviation, or entrepreneurship support. The ministry for Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation have various programs that do those things, from Tradermoni to Npower, to the Conditional Cash Transfer Program, Government Enterprise and Empowerment Program (GEEP), Home Grown School Feeding Program (HGSF), and others. As soon as these programs are announced, government officials lobby for their constituencies to be beneficiaries.
According to Npower News, people who know the Minister for Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation and others in the ministry send in names. Influential people in the country also wangle names to the Minister for Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation. In the days of Professor Yemi Osinbajo's Tradermoni, when they just carried cash to markets and gave to people, at the end of the day, they would announce that the government shared billions with millions of Nigerians without any way of crosschecking who the recipients were and how much the government spent.
Due to public outcry and outburst by accountability and transparent groups, they have made it more sophisticated. This time, the agency stipulates that recipients' names must be verified, and money must be paid into their bank accounts.
That is where friends of the ministry, like Mr Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo come in. They get a contract to verify the names and accounts of recipients.
According to Npower News, what happens next is that these contractors, the ministry officials, all work with banks to generate names and accounts.
One of the most common questions Nigerians ask about the ministry's activities is who the recipients of all the money they share are. There is a reason why you do not know them. And I will explain that to you.
When challenged, the government says that some recipients do not want to be named, so they respect their wishes and protect their privacy. Deception. This excuse is a cover to keep perpetuating their crimes. Are the recipients of ₦25,000 afraid of being kidnapped? If recipients do not want their names out there, they do not desperately need the money.
When the government announced that 2,000,000 people would receive ₦25,000 each, the actual recipients may just be 500,000. A long list of people on the corruption-feeding pipe pockets the rest of the money.
Here are a few things that Betta Edu and Mr Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo did with public money, the Nigerian people's money.
The truth is that the money never got to the people. The registers they claim they have are fake, full of fake names.
Now, the ministry for Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation and other influential members of society who submit names collaborate with banks to generate fake names with NIN numbers to channel payments. Once payment is made, they collect their illicit percentages of the money and announce an infinitesimal number of actual recipients.
If you want to catch them, set up an investigation to look at the names of any of these government giveaway recipients. And you will end up locking them all up.
Last December, the Minister of Solid Minerals, Dele Alake, announced that the government was subsidizing by 50% the transportation cost for Nigerians going home for the Christmas holiday. How many people used that service? How much did the government pay? Which transportation companies received the payment from the government? What are the records of the transportation companies that showed the names and phone numbers of the people who used the service?
According to Npower, all those should be public information. Global best practice requires those responsible for spending funds to provide public information on how they spend it. Zero accountability and transparency are the preferred default state of criminals in corridors of power. A government that dislikes accountability and transparency has no interest in curbing corruption among its ranks and files. And when that same government has no clue what conflict of interest means, they cannot draw a line between the public and private. And as long as that is the case, nothing changes about that cesspool and the people like Betta Edu, Femi Gbajabiamila, and Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo who swim in it.
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