Humanitarian Affairs Ministry, Most Notorious Cesspool of Corruption – HURIWA Says

…Challenges the minister to schedule a date for debate on school feeding programme

BY VICTOR BUORO, ABUJA – Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has expressed concern that the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, charged with the mandate to develop humanitarian policies and provide effective coordination of National and International humanitarian interventions has become the single most notorious cesspool of corruption and lack of transparency and accountability in over 60 years of the nation’s Independence.

It also said that instead of positioning itself in the light of the prevailing humanitarian situation in the country through its vision, mission and core values to promote human dignity and integration of basic humane benevolence and compassion in the treatment of Nigerians, the Ministry has rather repositioned itself as a cash guzzling machine and a financial disaster.

HURIWA therefore challenged the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs to schedule a date for debate on the alleged widespread corruption that has characterised the implementation of the Social Investment Programme and the administration of School Feeding Programme particularly during the period when schools were on lockdown.

HURIWA vowed that as a mass movement, it would not deterred by sponsored attacks against its position on allegation of corruption against the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs thus wants the minister to be a democrat and appear at an independent forum to take questions from Nigerians.

The group in a statement by its National Coordinator and Director, Media Affairs, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and Zainab Yusuf respectively, noted that Nigeria has for a decade been embroiled in a huge humanitarian emergency occasioned by the Boko Haram insurgency, adding that the fallout calls for the biggest crisis management operations since the civil war over 50 years ago.

HURIWA said; “In his inaugural speech for his second term in office in May, 2019, President Buhari stated that the principal thrust of his new Administration is to consolidate on the achievements of the previous four years, correct the lapses inevitable in all human endeavours and tackle the new challenges the country is faced with and chart a bold plan for transforming Nigeria.

“Little wonder, then, that the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development was established in August, 2019 by an Executive pronouncement by the President.

“To some observers, creating the ministry was a master stroke which portrayed the government as a humanitarian one and signaled Buhari’s readiness to deliver empathy or, if you will, give the impression of running a ‘government with a human face.’ Beyond such interpretation, however, lies the significance of rising to the enormous task of having a proper and coordinated response to the humanitarian crises and providing relief and meaning to the life of victims.

“Given the current global crisis as a result of the covid-19 pandemic, and the recent report that in Nigeria, five in 10 children under-five are malnourished (stunted, wasted or overweight); while three in 10 children aged six to 23 months live on poor diets; the Social Investment Programme of the Federal Government under the coordination of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management has left more to be desired of it.

“This fact was admitted when the minister reportedly met a joint meeting organised by the National Assembly in which both the Senate President Ahmed Lawan and the Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila expressed disappointment that the implementation of the Social Investment Programme has not met the targeted objectives and the minister accepted that she inherited some of the challenges bordering on questions of transparency and accountability,” it stated.

HURIWA further said that nothing best illustrates the fact that all is not well with the National Social Investment Programmes (NSIPSs) of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government than the recent condemnation of the Modified Home Grown School Feeding Programme, as well as last April’s row between managers of the programme and the leadership of the National Assembly over the initiative.

It noted that the programme under the ministry reportedly claimed to have blown away billions of public funds to feed school children during the three months of Covid-19 lockdown when clearly the children were all at homes in different parts of the country.

According to HURIWA; “More worrisome is that this appalling and muddy feeding programme happened despite a groundswell of well-informed opposition to the disastrous idea only because the executioners had allegedly designed the primitive ways of allegedly siphoning public funds under the guise of feeding ghost school children”.

The group challenged the minister that to prove it wrong, the Ministry should provide facts and figures for all to see and judge.