Betta Edu: Atiku’s aide tells President Tinubu to go after collaborators who wickedly benefitted from money meant for poor people

Mr Phrank Shaibu, a Special Assistant to the former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar on Public Communication, has advised President Bola Tinubu for the suspending the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr Betta Edu, saying collaborators who “remotely and wickedly benefitted from money that was meant for poor Nigerians” should be fished out.

While commending Tinubu for the development on Monday, he said, the suspension was not enough as the scandal was not possible without collaborators.

Shaibu issued a statement on Tuesday and made it available to journalists amid plethora of reactions trailing the suspension of the Minister over alleged transfer of N585.2 million into a private account.

He described as “cash cow”, for the highly privilege Nigerians and officials of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, a programme meant to lift over 100 million Nigerians out of extreme poverty.

President Bola Tinubu on Monday suspended the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation after a leaked memo showed that she ordered the transfer of N585.2 million into the private bank account of a civil servant, who is the accountant in charge of grants for Vulnerable Nigerians.

Dr Edu was a former National Women Leader of the All Progressives Congress before her appointment as Minister.

The statement said: “Firstly, he had no business appointing her as a minister of such a sensitive ministry in the first place.
“Tinubu put politics ahead of competence, hence this scandal. What experience did Betta have in the development sector? How was Imaan Ibrahim, with her wealth of experience, overlooked? How did the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, stand as Betta Edu’s referee during her clearance at the Senate?”

He insisted that Betta Edu was not the only one involved in the scandal, urging the President to direct the anti-graft agencies to investigate a company owned by the Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo that carried out consultancy services to the tune of N438.1 million.

He said: “To be fair, it is not only Betta Edu that was involved in this shady transactions. More documents show that the minister of interior’s company also benefitted. Reports suggest that others in the Tinubu government got cash from this same ministry under the dubious Renewed Hope Initiative.

“Betta Edu should not be the fall guy. Others who have remotely and wickedly benefitted from money that was meant for poor Nigerians ought to be fished out, probed, and prosecuted too. It is demonic and tendentiously wicked to steal in the name of the poor.
“Further leaks showed that millions were released by Betta Edu to fund a flight to a non-existent Kogi airport. They must have used witchcraft airways.”

Atiku’s aide said there was a need for the government to reform the humanitarian affairs ministry and other interventionist programmes that had become an ATM and POS for those in power.

He noted that the fact that the previous Humanitarian Affairs Minister, Sadiya Umar Farouq, was also being probed for N37billion fraud was evidence that immediate and urgent actions need to be taken to reform the ministry.

He said: “Even during the COVID-19 lockdown, Farouq continued to implement the school feeding programme. She ridiculously claimed that the food would be delivered to the students at home since schools were shut.

“Today, Betta Edu claims that over three million households got N20,000 each during the Yuletide. Sadly, there is no evidence of millions of Nigerians getting such money. This shows that money has just been going into private pockets.

“The scandal that we are contending with is not about Betta Edu, nor about Halima Shehu, or any other rogue element for that matter.
“It is about a problem of systemic corruption through which the APC continues to bleed the treasury, ironically, asphyxiating the poor and vulnerable segment of the country, all in the name of caring for them.

“The APC has weaponized poverty and hunger to control the minds of the vulnerable masses, and it is even worse that they have devised a method to use poverty as an instrument of official corruption.”