AN American-based Nigerian professor writer has asked President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to sack the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Betta Edu, following an allegation of N585,198,500.00 million fraud.
Farooq Kperogi, in an essay he shared Saturday through X handle, said if President Tinubu failed to sack Mrs Edu immediately, the President would have lost the morals to fight corruption.
“Unfortunately, some of the crimes Muhammadu Buhari’s people committed in his eight-year reign are reappearing now. It has now come to light, for example, that Betta Chimaobim Edu, the successor to Sadiya Umar Farouq, has started the same pattern of theft by her predecessor.
“In a leaked December 20, 2023, memo to the Accountant-General of the Federation, Edu instructed that money designated for “vulnerable groups in Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Ogun and Lagos,” which amounted to more than N500 million, should be paid into the private UBA account of one Bridget Mojisola Oniyelu in violation of Nigeria’s public sector financial regulation law.
“The regulation says public money should not, under any circumstance, be paid into private bank accounts. “Any officer who pays public money into a private bank account is deemed to have done so with fraudulent intentions,” section 713 of the act says.
“This is a momentous moment for Tinubu. If he does not fire Edu forthwith and bring her to justice, he has already lost the moral high ground to try Muhammadu Buhari’s corrupt honchos,” he said
Minister Edu is under fire for approving the payment of N585,198 million government fund into a United Bank of Africa private account of Bridget Mojisola Oniyelu.
Eighteen-Eleven Media