Betta Edu and the crime scene called Nigeria: The reason why the Betta Edu scandal blew open was not because the system flagged it but because aggrieved insiders who have an axe to grind with her for contesting their sole proprietorship of the stealing franchise in the Humanitarian Affairs Ministry leaked the memo.
Dr Betta Edu, the vivacious and chirpy politician from Cross River State, must be introspecting now. Just yesterday, she had the world at her feet, literally, and Nigeria was her oyster, where, it seemed, she could achieve anything she wished.
And she achieved a lot. Born October 27, 1986, Betta chalked up incredible attainments in 37 years. Right from the time she completed her secondary education in 2001 at the Federal Government Girls College, Calabar and obtained her first degree in medicine and surgery from the University of Calabar in 2009, her rise to super stardom has been incredible.
In 2015, Governor Ben Ayade appointed her Special Adviser on Community and Primary Healthcare. Since then, she has been on a helluva of a journey, becoming Commissioner for Health and the chairperson of the Cross River State COVID-19 Taskforce. It was a measure of her charisma that in August 2020, she became national chairperson of the Nigeria Health Commissioners Forum.
A Fellow of the African Institute of Public Health Professionals, in March 2022, Betta Edu, transcending state politics, became the youngest national Woman Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and a role model of sorts for not only young people but women, so much so that in July 2023, the Asabe Bashir-led Maryam Babangida National Centre for Women Development, in collaboration with the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, bestowed her with an award of excellence in leadership for gender inclusion and women empowerment in recognition of her “commitment to championing the cause of empowering women, children and other vulnerable groups in Nigeria.”
Then, as an icing on her cake of accomplishments, President Bola Tinubu nominated her minister. Promptly cleared by the Senate, she was sworn in as Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation in August 2023, making her the first female minister from Cross River State and the youngest in the Fourth Republic.
But like the Evil Forest in Chinua Achebe’s magnum opus, Things Fall Apart, that kills a man on the day that his life is sweetest to him, Betta Edu has fallen from grace to grass. Today, she is ridiculed as the poster girl of corruption in Nigeria.
She has been shoved off her high perch, suspended from office by Tinubu who handed her over to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for probe. Her travel documents have been seized. She has become a pariah. Meanwhile, the Permanent Secretary, Abel Olumuyiwa Enitan, has taken over the leadership of the ministry.
For all intents and purposes, Betta Edu’s roller coaster trajectory in the corridors of power has come to a dramatic and sad end. The only thing that could equal her spectacular fall from grace to grass is her equally meteoric rise from grass to grace. In some climes where self-esteem is still considered priceless, she should be on the suicide watch list. But this is Nigeria. Such contemplations are a taboo.
No-matter what the outcome of the EFCC probe is – and I don’t see how she will be exonerated of financial malfeasance having owned up to the vexatious memo seeking to transfer N585 million of public funds into private account contrary to statutory regulations – Betta Edu will not return to the Tinubu cabinet.
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Chapter 7 of the Federal Government Financial Regulations, section 713, which unequivocally warns that public and personal money should not intermingle, states: “Personal money 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 account is deemed to have done so with fraudulent intention.” And that is exactly what she did.
To be sure, this is not the first time Betta Edu will be entangled in a scandal. Her stewardship as the chairperson of the Cross River State COVID-19 Taskforce was not without reproach. The Cross River State chapter of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) passed a vote of no confidence in her, alleging professional misconduct in her handling of the assignment.
In other climes, such baggage would have been an issue during her ministerial screening. Not in Nigeria. Both the security agencies and the Senate never bothered. The Imperial President, on whose mandate they all stand, wanted her to be a minister, so, a minister she must be.
But I am not worried about Edu. Her goose is cooked. President Tinubu will milk to the fullest any mileage her humpty-dumpty fall will give him as a leader not in bed with corruption, which we all know is a fat lie. Already, for suspending her, many Nigerians have, undeservedly, festooned Tinubu in anti-corruption robes.
But even as I don’t have any pity for the disgraced minister, there is a need for clarity. Was the money in question released? The Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), Oluwatoyin Madein, who is the administrative head of the Nigerian treasury, said her office did not honour Edu’s December memo requesting her to transfer the money from the National Social Investment office account to the UBA account of Bridget Oniyelu, the accountant of a federal government poverty intervention project called Grants for Vulnerable Groups.
The AGF claimed not only to have refused to honour the memo but educated the minister on the illegality of the request.
“The Ministry was advised on the appropriate steps to take in making such payments in line with the established payment procedure,” she said on Saturday. “No bulk payment is supposed to be made to an individual’s account in the name of the Project Accountant.”
But Edu, through her media aide, Rasheed Zubair, insisted on Friday that the payment was legal.
“It is legal in civil service for a staff, the project accountant, to be paid and use the same funds legally and retire same with all receipts and evidence after the project or programme is completed,” the statement stated.
That raises some fundamental questions. When did Madein’s advisory come? Is it possible that the minister insisted that her action was legal even after the AGF had called her out on its illegality?
Was Betta Edu acting alone or some powerful forces in government were just using her to siphon money? Was the money released? If not, what is the hoopla all about? If yes, where is Bridget Oniyelu?
Every discerning Nigerian knows that the Humanitarian Affairs Ministry is APC’s conduit pipe to siphon public funds. Despite all the noise, the stealing is not about to stop – not under Tinubu’s watch.
Anyone, foolish enough to volunteer her head for the breaking of coconut, which is exactly what the suspended minister did, should suffer the consequences.
But if anything, the Edugate, as the scandal has been dubbed, has confirmed the fact that Nigeria is a huge crime scene. It is an embarrassing systemic failure and though Tinubu has, no doubt, ticked all the right boxes with the actions he has taken so far, the spectre of corruption is not about to be exorcised.
The reason why the Betta Edu scandal blew open was not because the system flagged it but because aggrieved insiders who have an axe to grind with her for contesting their sole proprietorship of the stealing franchise in the Humanitarian Affairs Ministry leaked the memo.
The trouble in the Humanitarian Affairs Ministry started last October when Halima Shehu was appointed the National Coordinator and CEO of the National Social Investment Program Agency (NSIPA), a parastatal in the ministry. Edu, apparently would have preferred Dele Yakubu, now Senior Special Assistant to Tinubu on Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, for the job.
Having lost out in the appointment game, the minister, who is a signatory to the NSIPA account, for reasons best known to her, started making withdrawals running into billions of Naira without the knowledge of the coordinator. On finding out, Shehu, in a desperate bid to retain control over the agency and its finances, transferred the remaining money out of the accounts that Edu had access to.
The suspended minister moved against her and the EFCC came in. Not wanting to go down alone, memos that were hitherto safely tucked away, started flying around.
Since its creation by the Muhammadu Buhari presidency, the Humanitarian Affairs Ministry has been a cesspit of corruption with no accountability. It is good that Edu’s predecessor, Sadiya Umar-Farouq, is in the law’s crosshairs now over allegations of corruption in the handling of N37.1 billion social intervention funds during her tenure.
Every well-meaning Nigerian should be worried. The Edugate is only a tip of the iceberg. Ours is a country where people pay millions of Naira to secure ministerial appointments and committee chairmanship is offered to the highest bidders in the National Assembly. Those orchestrating these heists are high priests on the presidential altar.
That is why Nigeria has become a huge crime scene. While Betta Edu’s fall from grace to grass is gratifying, those squawking that Tinubu has turned the corner on the anti-corruption fight are grossly mistaken. The rot is deep.