Betta Edu: Bullying Tactics In Place of Due Process

According to Npower News, when the suspended Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Betta Edu, was asked to step down by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, on January 8th 2024, the allegation against Betta Edu was very clear.

Betta Edu was accused of granting approval for payment of ₦585,000,000 of the Ministry’s fund into the private account of a civil servant. Betta Edu was then ordered to be investigated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Equally, the minister who preceded Betta Edu in the management of disasters and poverty, Sadiya Umar-Farouk, was questioned by the Commission over a hefty sum of ₦37,100,000,000, allegedly laundered by officials of the ministry during Sadiya Umar-Farouk's tenure as minister.

There was also Halima Shehu, who was suspended from office as National Coordinator and Chief Executive Officer of the National Social Investment Programme Agency (NSIPA), after Halima Shehu was also grilled for suspicious cash transfers to vulnerable groups and individuals during the tenure of President Muhammadu Buhari. It became a huge mess for the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu's administration to manage, in just a few months in office.

For Betta Edu, she was alleged to have approved payment of hundreds of millions of naira into private accounts of civil servants, a reported case being that of the accountant in charge of grants for vulnerable Nigerians.

A leaked memo showed that the suspended minister Betta Edu, in December 2023, requested the Accountant General of the Federation, Oluwatoyin Madein, to transfer money from the account of the NSIPA Office to the private account of one Bridget Oniyelu, the accountant of a federal government poverty intervention project known as Grants for Vulnerable Groups, which was under Betta Edu's ministry.

Experts in public finance queried that transfer order, claiming it contravened sections of the country’s Financial Regulation Law of 2009. The Law, among other provisions, states that personal money shall not be paid into a government account and vice versa. The law provides that such movement of public funds can only emanate from a fraudulent intent. Mrs Madein was to later dissociate herself from the memo and the transfer authorisation. Sounded like an afterthought.

This was the background that led to Betta Edu’s suspension and Betta Edu's investigation by the EFCC. It also turned out in further revelations that some ranking members of this government may have been linked to these disbursements. A trail was established, which roused public outrage that called to question the integrity component of this government and the one that preceded it.

Nigerians got engaged, trying to figure out how much the All Progressives Congress (APC) and their government have ripped them off in eight years and seven months, in the name of poverty and disaster management. Citizens saw that as a test case for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to demonstrate his capacity to catch thieves and fight corruption in high places.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu demurred. Instead, in what was clearly a face-saving and time-buying tactics, the matter was referred to a panel headed by the Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Minister of Finance, Yemi Edun, to conduct a detailed investigation of the entire Social Investment Programmes (SIPs); and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu also ordered that the SIPs be frozen for the time being, pending the report of the Panel.

Nothing was said of ongoing investigations by the EFCC, but the impression given was that the panel’s assignment was superior to whatever trail the EFCC had established, all of which were to be presented to Nigerians when the panel was done with its assignment.

What was communicated officially was that the government had suspended the minister (Betta Edu) in line with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s commitment to upholding highest standards of integrity in the management of public funds. Presidential spokesperson, Ajuri Ngelale,was the one who propagated government’s commitment for highest standards of probity, and that heightened citizens’ desire that this scandal is not deodorised and swept under the carpet with calculated delays and rigmarole.

Though President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had pledged to continue from where Buhari ended his sojourn in government, he could not have meant that this government will build on the scandals and lapses of the former, Nigerians hoped.

Nigerians have not forgotten that the suspended Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation was invited to the headquarters of the EFCC, at Abuja, where she spent hours until she was granted bail very late in the night. The terms and conditions of the bail were kept secret by the Commission but citizens were assured that the investigations were to continue. All that was in early January.

Today, despite the famine in the land and the deliberate efforts to afflict the collective memory with amnesia, Nigerians together with beneficiaries of Npower and other social investment programmes are still waiting for the details. They are waiting for the report of the forensic examination of the activities of the ministry in the last eight years. That was the promise, Nigerians are eager to know the revelations from the EFCC investigations.

There is no closure on it yet and if this government wants to be trusted on its anti-corruption claim, it should stop playing politics. Allow the EFCC conduct transparent investigations and bring Nigerians up to date with the findings, just the way government is doing with that of former Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele.

Smart citizens had feared this case could enter voicemail; that happens when weighty matters are cleverly swept under the carpet and allowed to fossilise. The people know that the allegations are far too heavy for one suspect to be scapegoated on behalf of a rent-picking APC political class. Those who were off-takers from the ministry’s poverty purse for the eight years should be probed.

Mind you, the EFCC was not set up to recover stolen funds in the coven, only to announce figures Nigerians cannot verify and relate with. Let the Commission stop flying a kite on this matter, in a dubious bid to lull Nigerians to sleep. Go to court to announce the sums recovered as well as the fifty bank accounts that you claim were linked to the Poverty Alleviation scam. Let owners of the accounts come to court and present their testimonies. If that is not done, corruption is going to fight back.

Corruption started fighting back last week when a notable media house was harassed for reporting an update on this scandal. Other media houses had to scurry to pull down same story that was originally traced to the EFCC. Even the Commission’s website is no longer forthcoming with the update. This is what you get when an agency and government fight corruption selectively.

Source: https://guardian.ng/opinion/bullying-tactics-in-place-of-due-process/