Is Betta Edu a scapegoat or sacred cow?

Former President Muhammadu Buhari created the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development on August 21, 2019. However, after President Bola Tinubu took over in May 2023, the name was changed to the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation. Prior to this, the National Emergency Management Agency, National Social Investment Office, North-East Development Commission, National Commission for Refugees, and National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, which are agencies under the ministry, were either under the Office of the Vice President or in other ministries.

Out of all the agencies under the ministries, the National Social Investment Office is the cynosure of all eyes and the one most enmeshed in controversies. The National Social Investment Programme was established in 2016 as a social safety net to care for the poor and needy. The seed fund then was N500bn. It was the biggest welfarist programme in Africa at inception. The programmes under the NSIP are fourfold. The N-Power programme is designed to assist young Nigerians between the ages of 18 and 35 to acquire and develop lifelong skills for becoming change makers in their communities and players in the domestic and global markets and given a stipend of N30,000 monthly. There are four sectors in N-Power namely; education, agriculture, health and vocational training. The Conditional Cash Transfer programme directly supports those within the lowest poverty bracket by improving nutrition, increasing household consumption and supporting the development of human capital through cash benefits to various categories of the poor and vulnerable. The support is conditioned on fulfilling soft and hard co-responsibilities that enable recipients to improve their standard of living.

Government enterprise and empowerment programme is a micro-lending intervention that targets traders, artisans, enterprising youth, farmers and women in particular, by providing loans between N10,000 and N100,000 at no monthly cost to beneficiaries. The home-grown school feeding programme is reducing the incidence of malnutrition (especially among the poor and those ordinarily unable to eat a meal a day), empowering community women as cooks, and supporting small farmers that help economic growth stimulation. There is no gainsaying that the motive behind the establishment of the NSIP is noble and laudable. However, the implementation has been enmeshed in swirling controversies and corrupt practices.

On January 2, 2024, Tinubu ordered the immediate suspension and investigation of the National Coordinator and CEO of the National Social Investment Programme Agency, Ms. Halima Shehu, over alleged financial malfeasance. With the suspension and investigation into the allegations, the National N-POWER Program Manager, Dr Akindele Egbuwalo, has been appointed in an acting capacity as the NC/CEO pending the conclusion of the investigation. Her suspension is coming about three months after the confirmation of her appointment by the Senate in October 2023.

After the axe fell on Halima, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission invited a former Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Sadiya Umar-Farouq, for questioning over a purported N37.1bn money laundering issue. She did not honour the invitation last week’s Wednesday purportedly due to ill health but made herself available last Monday, January 8, 2024. Umar-Farouq was grilled for about 12 hours by the EFCC detectives over the ongoing probe into the N37.1bn allegedly laundered during her tenure in office, through a contractor, James Okwete. The ex-minister was questioned from 11am to 11pm by investigators seeking information on how the huge sum was allegedly laundered by top officials who served under her.

Meanwhile, data from the Budget Office indicate that the ministry, erstwhile known as Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, had a N2.38tn budget from 2020 to 2024. Figures from the budget office showed that in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024, the total allocations to the ministry and agencies under it were N453.3bn, N456.1bn, N507.9bn, N426bn and N532.5bn respectively.

As if the Ministry of Human Affairs is under a curse, the recently appointed minister, Betta Edu, who had previously served as Commissioner for Health in Cross Rivers State and the National Women Leader of the All Progressives Congress was suspended on Monday for breaching Public Finance Regulations. The scandal involving Edu burst open after a leaked memo revealed that the suspended minister directed the Accountant-General of the Federation, Oluwatoyin Madein, to transfer N585m to a private account owned by one Oniyelu Bridget, who the ministry claimed currently serves as the Project Accountant, Grants for Vulnerable Groups. The minister had claimed that the N585m payment was meant for vulnerable groups in Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Ogun, and Lagos states, describing the allegations against her as baseless. The Media Assistant to the minister, Rasheed Olarewaju, said in a statement that it was legal within the civil service for such payments to be made into private accounts of staff members, especially project accountants.

The position of Olanrewaju is at variance with the Federal Government’s Financial Regulation Chapter 7, page 713 which says personal monies shall in no circumstances be paid into a government bank account, nor shall any public money be paid into a private bank account. An officer, who pays public money into a private bank account, is deemed to have done so with fraudulent intention. Interestingly, this may have been the practice in the past because a December 27, 2021 report in Dataphyte publication named Data Dive reported that, “Some Federal Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies in three months paid N4.08 billion into personal accounts, a breach of the Nigerian financial regulation. The payments were made between June and August 2021 into personal accounts belonging to individuals who are neither contractors nor suppliers. Dataphyte analysis from the Open Treasury Portal showed that amounts totalling N2 billion (2,022,215.301.00) were paid in June, N1.8 billion (1,833,481,669.50) was paid in July while N193 million (193,110,472.00) was paid in August. All payments were made into personal accounts.”

The report said further that, “In June 2021, a sum of N2 billion (2,022,215.301.06) was disbursed into accounts belonging to Miss Afangekung Okon, Sani Saleh and Aniegboka O. Peter by the New Partnership for African Development and National Investment Office respectively.”

What is not clear is why Betta did not consult with her Permanent Secretary who is supposed to be the Chief Accounting Officer of the ministry or any of the directors of the ministries before penning that memo to the AGF. The National Social Investment Office is a parastatal under her, why did that memo not emanate from the National Coordinator and CEO of NSIPA, Ms. Halima Shehu? Obviously, her action in that memo did not follow due process.  Aside from the N585m memo controversy, billions of naira were allegedly paid to some companies as consultancy fees to build the National Social Register. In fact, some sections of the media report alleged that New Planet Project Limited, a company founded by the Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, with registration number 804833, registered on March 3, 2009, got a contract for N438.1m as a consultant for the National Social Register contract to verify 11 million homes in Nigeria, carried out in one month.

Did these consultancies go through due process before they were awarded? Was there a tenders board meeting and did the process go through competitive bidding? Time will tell if Edu is indeed a scapegoat or a sacred cow! However, the president did well by suspending her and asking for a thorough investigation into the matter.