Stealing From The Poor Is Abuja’s Favourite Game -By Dele Sobowale

Two former Ministers of Humanitarian Services – one sacked but allowed to go home and the other now on the run – symbolize how public servants in Abuja view Nigeria’s poor people. They are not to be helped; they are to be robbed. President Tinubu, like his predecessors, Jonathan and Buhari – is just finding that out the hard way.

If he wants to know why the poor people are not experiencing the positive impacts of his reforms, he will be well advised to look at his Presidency, Ministers, Director Generals and the Ministry of Petroleum – especially, the NNPCL. A leopard never changes its coat. It is apparently impossible to cleanse the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited. If he has the courage, he should also take a hard look at the political chieftains crawling in the corridors of power. They mis-represent him more that he realizes; as will be demonstrated presently.

Why palliatives don’t reach the poor

President Tinubu claims Lagos Island, Kakawa Street specifically, as his place of origin. In fact, Lagos Island Government constitutes the perfect place for him to conduct a study of how the palliatives sent to the grassroots are distributed. It would be revealing. But, perhaps because of the tight schedules of campaign activities, he might not have all the time needed to attend to the survey. How two previous attempts made by Obasanjo and Buhari ended might help to illustrate the point.

For the sake of those not familiar with our Island, permit me to mention a few characteristics which would make it easier to understand the point being made here. Lagos Island Local Government is perhaps the smallest LGC in Nigeria.

Approximately, one hundred large families – Cardoso, Tinubu, Akangbe Onire, Bajulaiye, Sasore, Alli-Balogun, Carrena etc – have inhabited the Island for centuries and have inter-married over the years. It is almost impossible to belong to any of the large families without being related to several others through blood and marriage. Nothing significant occurs anywhere on the Island that is not known everywhere within days. There are less than 400 streets on the entire Island. That last point is extremely important when considering reports about palliatives issued by Federal Government officials.

In 1999, the PDP government launched the Poverty Alleviation Programme, PAP; and committed N10 billion to it. The Minister of Works, late Chief Anenih, “Mr Fix-It”, was also saddled with administering the programme. That was a great blunder, if poverty alleviation was the objective. Mr Fix-it was only interested in politics; not programme. Funds allocated to Lagos State were handed to party officials; who, in turn, allocated to the LGCs’ party leaders. Unemployed people were to be engaged at N10,000 per month for three months, to undertake public service – street cleaning, garbage collection, tree planting etc. Even in 1999, N10,000 would not have lifted anybody out of poverty. To make matters worse, less than 40 people were selected – mostly girl-friends of political leaders. The scheme ended three months later; and everybody was back looking for work. Those who resigned from jobs could not return. There was no record of how much was allocated to Lagos State. One late official charged with recruiting candidates bought a car; the recipients later claimed they were paid less than N10,000 each month.

Nothing proves more conclusively that Nigerians and their governments never learn from precedents than what happened in 2019. President Buhari launched a similar job creation programme like PAP. Festus Keyamo, SAN, the Minister of State for Labour, was in charge. According to the fairy tale announced to Nigerians, 1,000 Nigerians in the 774 Local Governments of Nigeria would be employed and paid N20,000 a month for six months. Again, by 2019, N20,000 a month could not lift anybody out of poverty because it was less than $2, two dollars per day. But, Keyamo the lawyer is distinctly different from Keyamo the Minister.

The former examines evidence dispassionately; the latter will not allow facts to get in the way of official fiction. He set out to execute the programme. We were waiting in Lagos Island. Unknown to Buhari and Keyamo, meetings were held. Instructions went out. Any beneficiary of the programme should be identified. With less than 400 streets on the Island, at least each street should have one recipient, even if long roads like Igbosere, Bamgbose, Adeniji Adele receive ten or more.

After waiting more than two years, I wrote an article requesting for the list of successful candidates in Lagos Island. No response. But, it was not surprising that the programme was claimed as one of the success stories of the Buhari government. N52 billion was announced as the programme cost estimate. Till today, there is no accountability for how the funds vanished. Keyamo is still in government.

Buhari and the former Minister for Humanitarian Services, Ms Farouk Usman, now a fugitive from the law performed a miracle; which trumped that of Jesus feeding 5,000 people with five loaves and two fishes. Buhari’s Ministry – including the Minister, Permanent Secretary, Directors, and Accountants, etc – claimed to have fed millions of school children who were locked up in their homes nationwide during COVID-19. Billions of money disappeared from Abuja; no single grain of rice could have been traced to have reached any child anywhere in Nigeria.

SIP ghosts from 2016 to 2023

One day, a historian, blessed with better health than me, would conduct extensive research into the Social Investment Programme, SIP, launched by Buhari in 2016; and which later gave way to the Ministry of Humanitarian Services. There was nothing humanitarian about the way it was executed. On the contrary, the officials in charge were uniformly conscienceless. What follows was first published in 2018. The atrocities continued until now.

More damning is the likely reason why no audited accounts have been submitted. That again can be summarized under the word “Ghosts”. The SIP is host to probably the largest number of ghosts and parasites inhabiting the Federal Government establishment under Buhari. The ghosts of SIP include ghost schools, ghost school children being fed, ghost teachers employed and ghosts receiving N5000 per month from the FG. Just in case the reader thinks this is just my opinion, let me provide some evidence. First, Mrs Uwais had confessed to a National Assembly Committee that it was difficult if not impossible to locate the recipients, or ghosts, collecting the monthly handout. Second, Senator Danjuma Goje, Chairman of the Senate Appropriation Committee, had also voiced out loud his inability to locate any recipient of the money.

Why N33.75bn is small change

Civil servants and short-time appointees have not changed their attitude. Every appointment remains an invitation to “come and eat”. We have observed how several social and media critics join in the bonanza once appointed to a lucrative office. I met a former colleague, who drank Coke or Pepsi, when he was spending his own hard-earned funds. We met in June and he has secured an appointment with Tinubu’s government. He now drinks very expensive red wine. He grumbled about corruption when out of government. In June, he told me frankly that “people criticizing the government for corruption are ignorant”.