By suspending her from office, with a fiat, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu simply succumbed to the strident campaign orchestrated by a dizzying array of interests, groups and individuals, against his Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr Betta Edu. It is at once sad as it is, paradoxically, not surprising.
It is not surprising because, the deafening cacophony generated by the forces that were baying for Edu’s blood got to a pitch that, the president apparently became overwhelmed and intimidated. It is sad Mr President could be so easily blackmailed, suffused and goaded into taking what looks like a hasty decision on an issue with potential critical repercussions on his administration.
The divergent elements that coalesced against Betta Edu, with the common goal of humiliating or destroying her, were differently motivated. First, her meteoric rise in the political space, with the distinction of being the youngest minister in the cabinet and ever since the beginning of the Fourth Republic, are factors that could ignite grief and envy in the hearts of petty minded people.
Betta Edu would also have incurred the wrath of some people for the “sin” of a spectacular performance that has stood her out as a shinning star minister in the Tinubu cabinet. Such a negative reaction would appear to normal people as whimsical and incredible. But, certain people can be fickle, low and mean.
Those who had been angling and waiting to strike with their venomous darts of hate and vendetta at Dr Edu, penultimate week, got a leeway through certain surprising developments. First, her predecessor in office, Hajiya Saddiya Umar Faruk, was invited by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, for questioning over a whopping N37 billion allegedly looted under her watch.
Days later, while a stunned public was still reeling from the revelation, President Tinubu directed the removal of Halima Shehu as the head of the National Social Investment Programme Agency, NSIPA, an agency supervised by the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation. Barely three months in office, Halima Shehu is alleged to have within three days, amazingly, brazenly removed the sum of N44 billion from the coffers of the agency into private bank accounts related to her. She was promptly arrested by the EFCC.
The so-called “leaked documents” of Dr Edu’s directive that the sum of N585 million be kept in the private bank account of a staff of the ministry has been held up and sensationalised in the mass media as evidence of an intent to divert public funds! In the circumstance, this allegation is nothing but a naked act of blackmail. More pointedly, it is the desperate action of a drowning man frantically not wanting to go down alone.
If the available facts are objectively perused, the insinuation of intention to steal the N585 million does not fly in the face of logic. First, the owner of the minister’s recommended bank account, Ms Niyelu Bridget Mojisola, is an official of the ministry and coordinator of the programme in respect of which the sum was earmarked. If the intent was fraudulent or criminal as it is being made out, Dr Edu is surely smart enough to have done a better job of it.
Very well, the minister’s recommendation that the money be kept in a private bank account would have breached financial procedure regarding the custody and disbursement of public funds. The critical point, however, is that, the anomaly was averted due to the observation and advice of the office of the Accountant General of the Federation. Thus at the end of the day, the N585 million, unlike the N37 billion or, the N44 billion, has not been declared as outrightly stolen or, “missing” from the government’s coffers.
The saga of Dr Betta Edu must be appraised beyond the grandstanding, the pranks and the theatrics that have been playing out.The seeming heroism and righteous indignation being hoisted over the N585 million are merely a facade. The motif force of their mission is the ignoble, vicious and self-centered agenda to torpedo the phenomenal sail of a youngster of extraordinary courage and incisive intelligence imbued with divine grace.
Very pertinently, Betta Edu would not have ran into troubled waters if she had not stood up against those who had fleeced the country of stupefying, mind-boggling sums of money. By calling attention to the monumental heist, she simply incurred the wrath of a dangerous, vicious clan of buccaneers. She stepped on the tails of cobras and rattlesnakes; she literally walked into the coven of bloodsucking demons.
Dr Edu would certainly have been cool, home and dry, if she had kept mute, looked the other way or, better still, accepted to partake in sharing the booty. She would not have been going through her present ordeal if she had not underestimated the extent to which corruption can go when it is fighting back.
For observers that view the big picture, the Edu case is a mere part of the trend by which corruption occasionally serves as the issue for contention between rival camps in the corridors of power. In the game, they deploy exposures of graft as arsenal for mutual destruction, to the applause of the unsuspecting, scandal-craving Nigerian public.
All this ensues, while self-appointed and often contracted critics, who ordinarily possess no better moral or ethical credentials, provide the commentary which in turn, elicit self-righteous indignation from spectators, who in the majority, are ineligible for such sentiment.
It is sad that President Tinubu played to the gallery by his clearly hasty decision on the charismatic, dazzling young minister. It is amazing, he didn’t see through the veneers of the mischievous designs of the heinous characters.
Ahmad, a Kaduna-based public analyst, writes via 0802 2230 274
