Ministry Of Humanitarian Resources Metaphor For Buhari/APC

 By Dele Sobowale

“All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies” – Dr John Arbuthnot, 1667-1735.

*Buhari and Sadiya Umar-Farouk, former minister for Humanitarian Affairs
The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, is close to the graveyard; mostly because Nigerians got sick and tired of the unfulfilled promises and outright lies the leaders of the party peddled for sixteen years. In a saner society, former President Obasanjo should not find five people ready to listen to his self-righteous utterances after leaving N8 trillion expenditure unexplained and $13-16 trillion taken for 10, 000MW power generation without result.

Jonathan, who collected more crude oil dollar revenue than any President on history, left very little long lasting legacy to his credit. Buhari’s eight years were characterised by monumental embezzlement of public funds; as we are now gradually beginning to realise. Invariably, two or three Ministries or agencies serve as proxy for the alleged looting spree – petroleum, power and poverty alleviation or palliatives programmes. But, because the focus is on Buhari and the All Progressives Congress, APC, I will limit my comments to the current ruling party – and its gradual march to the mortuary after eight years of Buhari.

WHY TINUBU/APC SHOULD WORRY

“You can fool some of the people all the time; you can fool all the people some of the time; but you can’t fool all the people all the time” – Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1865, 16th US President.

At the height of its popularity, 2003-2007, the late Vincent Ogbulafor, a former Chairman of the PDP boasted, as if he was God, that “PDP will rule for 70 years”. I warned him that he might live long enough to see PDP being booted out of office. The party that would do it was not yet formed. The man lived long enough to see Buhari/APC ruling Nigeria. Vincent and the PDP, like all politicians, were so wedded to their lies they failed to see the ground shifting under their feet. Jonathan’s margin of victory in 2011 was smaller than that of Yar’Adua; and a high percentage of it came from a deal he made with Bola Tinubu – who released the votes  of the South-West.

Clearly, the PDP and Jonathan were deceiving themselves for thinking that Jonathan won on his popularity in 2011. By 2014, the political sands had shifted again; as the PDP members in the National Assembly decamped to APC. Buhari/APC won by a small majority. The 2019 election followed the pattern of the 2003 elections as the President was re-elected with a bigger margin. But, by 2023, the majority of Nigerian voters were tired of Buhari/APC. The APC candidate, Tinubu, was fortunate that the opposition, particularly the PDP, split the votes in several states, and handed APC/Tinubu victory. It was not a majority vote.

Only about 34 per cent of the votes were cast for APC/Tinubu. Under the circumstances, only a sterling performance by Tinubu can save the party. Politicians select candidates for office; but, the people provide the followership – despite our impressions that votes don’t count. In the age of internet and online publications, Presidents worldwide can no longer suppress the truth.

So, whether Tinubu likes it or not, Nigerians are finding out that the Buhari/APC government was hypocritical and more corrupt than Jonathan’s. Furthermore, Buhari has made it more difficult for Tinubu to move the economy forward in a way that would shift public opinion in his favour. His spokesmen would do their best. But, nobody would believe them. The pains of hardship cannot be covered up by empty words and promises – like the New Year address.

THE GREAT FOOD ROBBERY UNDER BUHARI/APC

“EFCC uncovers N37bn fraud in Humanitarian Ministry, indicts Buhari’s Minister, contractor” -Report, December 24, 2023

Ms Sadiya Umar-Farouk, heading the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, but, whose ministry exhibited no spark of human kindness, was the sort of officer Buhari loved. Appointed for ethnic and religious reasons, they became untouchables. The story of the great larceny in the Ministry first broke out in 2021. 

The Ministry claimed to have distributed food to school children during the total lock-down under COVID-19 epidemic. A courageous House of Representatives Committee, exercising its oversight functions, summoned the Minister to find out how this “miracle” occurred. She ignored them; instead sent a subordinate who could not provide details. Buhari was aware of the drama casting aspersion on his legacy, but, he did nothing. Buhari was not alone in covering up the Great Food Robbery.

As the drama unfolded, four of my grandchildren, aged about 11, visited me for a special occasion. They attended different schools; but, these were the alleged recipients of the food distributed. Two questions were asked: Did you receive any food from your school? Was it possible to distribute food during the lockdown? 

The answers were unanimous to the two questions:  “No”. The youngest, and most precocious, only 10 years and six months, added: “How can somebody distribute food when we were sent home and my schoolmates are scattered all over Nigeria?” That was the heart of the matter. With that information, I sent out my scouts to several households in Lagos Island to find out if food was distributed during the lockdown. We could find no recipients. I wrote at least three articles questioning the fraud – and met a brick wall from Buhari/APC.

“There is no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way it treats its children” – Nelson Mandela, 1918-2013.

Granted, Buhari is not extremely bright, still, the Federal Executive Council, FEC, included very intelligent Ministers. All these extremely intelligent Nigerians sat at the FEC meetings where Sadiya Umar-Farouk presented this fairy tale as Report of achievement by her Ministry and nobody raised objections. Silence, as the former Ministers know better than the rest of us, means consent. Obviously, it was not only Buhari who accepted the false claims and applauded them; people we highly respected were willing to join in covering up the Great Food Robbery. It became a party crime. The most heart-rending aspect of this particular larceny was the fact that children were the victims. Nigerian grandfathers, fathers and mothers, elected to serve the people, gathered at FEC meetings to allow the children to be robbed mercilessly; and then Buhari went around claiming credit for food that was not delivered.