Three Women Linked To N84.1bn Fraud In Barely Five-Year-old Humanitarian Ministry

 

Ministry for Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation may be described as a cesspool of corruption if allegations of corrupt practices leveled against three women who superintended affairs in the beleaguered ministry can be proved

The Ministry for Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation could be considered a hotbed of corruption if the accusations of unethical behavior made against three women who oversaw affairs in the troubled ministry are validated.

It might be necessary for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to look into a N84 billion diversion.

Sadiya Umar-Farouq led the ministry that former President Muhammadu Buhari established in August 2019 until the end of the Buhari administration in May 2023.

Betta Edu, another woman, was named as President Bola Tinubu's second minister.

Following accusations of severe financial impropriety made against both the former and current ministers, the ministry has been in the news.

A new N3 billion is linked to Edu, and N37.1 billion is linked to Umar-Farouq.

Additionally, Halima Shehu, the CEO and National Coordinator of the National Social Investment Programme Agency (NSIPA), was arrested this week in relation to the N44 billion that was transferred from an NSIPA account to a few dubious accounts in the final four days of December 2023.

The stated N3 billion diversion from the NSIPA account has been refuted by Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Edu, who called the claim “spurious.”

Under the former President Muhammadu's administration, NSIPA was established in 2016 to address socioeconomic disparities and reduce poverty in Nigeria.

The National Home-Grown School Feeding Program, the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Program, the N-POWER Program, and the Conditional Cash Transfer Program served as the program's four main pillars when it was first established.

Regardless of where they are in the country, the goal of each pillar is to enable the poorest and most vulnerable Nigerians to achieve a decent standard of living.

But since the ministry in charge of the program has been rocked by ongoing corruption allegations, the program's core seems to have been undermined.