The Betta Edu Scandal
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu needed no one to tell him that in government, image matters as much as performance. When Bola Ahmed Tinubu became president on May 29, 2023, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu demonstrated the courage of a man who did not intend to let dithering and indecisions drive his administration.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu served notice that he would be prompt and decisive in taking decisions to enhance good governance and positively impact on the nation and its harried citizens. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu chose to begin by settling the lingering and embarrassing fuel subsidy and its corrupt administration under all previous governments.
It had reached a point, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank repeatedly warned our leaders, where it was no longer sustainable, and its continuation was doing more harm to the national economy than serving Nigerians. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu knew that by refusing to provide for fuel subsidy from June 2023, President Muhammadu Buhari set a booby trap for him.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu chose not to dodge it. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu walked into it to let the nation know where he stood on the vexed issue of fuel subsidy from which all his predecessors, bar none, shied away. Matters became increasingly worse for the economy and successive administrations. It became a fish bone lodged in the throat of the nation. Removing it was a problem; retaining it was a problem. Catch-22? Obviously.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu removed it. I chalked it up in my book as the dawn of an era in which actions would matter more than words among our public officers. Indecisions in the past had hobbled our national progress at all levels. It was characterised by this shuffle: problems identified, solutions offered by panels or commissions and the solutions were inexplicably ignored.
The problem was allowed to linger and to mutate into myriads of other serious problems. Think of how long the debate on the removal of fuel subsidy lasted. Had President Muhammadu Buhari removed it on his honour in 2015 on his assumption of office, the fall out could have been managed and we would not face the current economic difficulties.
By the time President Bola Ahmed Tinubu assumed office as president, the longest running war on the continent had gradually sputtered under the watch of the man who staked his integrity on killing corruption in the land. The fire had gone cold with its face covered in the ashes of indifference.
Public officers and civil servants freely helped themselves to the continent of treasuries at all levels. Stealing moved from the under the table to the top of the table. It leaped from millions into billions of naira. No shame; no conscience. The eyes of big brother looked but did not see what was happening to our treasuries.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, of course, knew that corruption had metamorphosed and was still wreaking havoc on the nation. President Bola Ahmed was jolted in January 2024 by the allegation that his Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Betta Edu, had dipped her hands in the pot of palm oil. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu promptly suspended Betta Edu from office to allow him to investigate what happened, how it happened and why it happened.
I chalked it up in my book as evidence that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was prepared to tackle corruption by acting promptly on all reported cases of official misbehaviour that border on corruption. I allowed myself to think that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is not going to pass the buck to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) but where necessary the president would act to defeat this canker worm.
It has been some two months since President Bola Ahmed Tinubu suspended Betta Edu. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has said nothing more about the incident. The former minister for Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation Betta Edu is forced to live in splendid isolation, unsure of her final fate in the administration. Silence appears to envelop Betta Edu's case.
This is no way to treat a public officer. I am sure Betta Edu and her family are anxious to see an end to her problem. This inaction on the part of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu does not square with his initial prompt response to the allegations against Betta Edu. Is President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, I wonder, regressing into indecisions and dithering?
It would be a thousand pities if this is the case. It would drag us back to what happened to high-profile cases in the immediate past. Take one such case. In 2020, the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, made 12 allegations against Ibrahim Magu, Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
President Muhammadu Buhari suspended Magu from office and set up a panel chaired by Justice Ayo Salami, to investigate the allegations against Magu. The panel carried out its assignment and submitted its report to President Muhammadu Buhari within the stipulated time. The panel went beyond the allegations against Magu and suggested what needed to be done to make the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) more effective in its onerous task of chaining corruption.
The report never saw the light of day. President Muhammadu Buhari did not bother to read it, let alone act on it. President Muhammadu Buhari said nothing more about the case beyond his initial reaction that suggested that he had reminded himself of his promise to kill corruption. Magu was left to stew in uncertainty and inaction.
When he could take it no more, Magu retired from the Nigeria Police. That inaction or indecision put a question mark on Magu’s character. Magu is forced to live with the allegations for the rest of his life. It is not the way to treat a man who chose to serve his country as a police officer.
Betta Edu must not be allowed to suffer the same fate. In the name of fighting corruption, it has become the tradition to treat public officers rather wretchedly. Often enough, high profile cases die without explanation to the Nigerian public. If Betta Edu is clean, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu should say so and either return Betta Edu to her office or let Betta Edu go home. If Betta Edu is guilty as alleged, let her face the wrath of the law, if only for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to show that under his watch, no one is above the law and there are no sacred cows and bulls.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has carved the image of an action president in his response to the fuel subsidy removal and the scandals of Betta Edu. It is an image many of us heartly welcome. For his own sake it is the image the president must maintain and constantly service.
To see the president act promptly today and regress into inaction and indecision tomorrow would not do his integrity as a person and his image as president much good.
It has been nine months since President Bola Ahmed Tinubu assumed office. It is time for the real Bola Ahmed Tinubu to now emerge in the public domain. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu's new persona will be the product of the image he cultivates. That image tells us how the president wants to be seen and judged by the people he leads. Vacillation has its place in governance, but it is both the enemy of a good image and of personal integrity.
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