Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar says the Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation Ministry has become a conduit pipe for siphoning of public funds by people in power.
The former number two citizen bemoaned the numerous scandals occasioned by corrupt practices and fraudulent activities that have dogged the relatively fledgling ministry and called for it reform.
Atiku’s position on the latest scandal rocking the ministry, which has dominated public discourse in recent weeks, is contained in a statement by his Special Assistant, Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu.
Atiku said the fact that the previous Humanitarian Affairs Minister, Sadiya Umar Farouq, was also indicted in the alleged N37 billion fraud underscored the urgent need to overhaul and reposition the ministry for better service delivery.
The statement reads: “There is 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.
“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”
He asserted that the financial impropriety went beyond the persons indicted in the fraud, adding that it was more about the entrenchment of corruption by the APC, impoverishing the people and using poverty as a tool of subjugation.
“The scandal that we are contending with is not about Betta Edu, nor about Halima Shehu, or any other person 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 weaponised 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