Nothing epitomizes the warped sense of history and complete obliteration of common sense as the apparent display of raucous, unmitigated, and threateningly mind-blowing “festival of hunger” and near-irrepressible multidimensional poverty that has characterized President Tinubu’s administration.
At a point where the citizens were made to hang on to the thin strands of flickering hope, christened Renewed Hope; President Tinubu appears determined to extinguish these flickering embers of hope, through his unresponsiveness, actions, and inactions. At a time when the Nation’s politico-sphere is filled with sonorous whispers of dissatisfaction against Tinubu’s economic policies, the President appears unfathomably clueless and incomprehensibly insensitive to the plights of the citizens.
Without prejudice to the scandalous sleaze that has characterized the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, methinks it defies logic and sound reasoning for the president to continually place the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation under lock and key, while patronizing the services of the same gluttonous, kleptomaniac and self-serving Governors whose insatiable greed led to the END-SARS upheaval.
What sense does it make for the president to place palliatives in the hands of the same Governors that greedily locked up COVID-19 palliatives meant for the masses, while supervising the eye-watering hunger that ravaged the masses?. During the last meeting the President had with the Governors, he was quoted as having urged the Governors to “spend money on the people rather than spend the people.”.
Going by that assertion, it’s crystal clear that the president is aware that he’s dealing with a ravenous cackle of hyenas. It is apparent that the more you increase allocations to the various states, the more rapaciously insatiable the governors will become.
At this juncture, one wonders what sense it makes for the president to still have the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation under lock and key. Assuming without conceding that Dr. Betta Edu’s sin is that “she stepped on toes,” how long will it take the president to reactivate the various Poverty Alleviation Programmes under the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, even in the face of this unspeakable and beleaguering hardship meted out to the masses by the removal of Fuel Subsidy and Floating of the Naira? In my view, it thus appears that the suspension of Dr. Betta Edu has done more harm than good for Tinubu’s administration. To her credit, Betta Edu saw the future, and prepared for it by proactively creating several programmes under the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs that were geared towards arresting the many issues of hunger and poverty.
Clearly, Betta Edu knew the mandate of her Ministry and it was obvious to all citizens of Nigeria and beyond that she was prepared and ready for her assigned duties. I mean, how else do you fight poverty if not by floating different poverty alleviation programmes like Betta Edu has done?
For the four and a half months Betta Edu was in office as Minister, she held the forte as the poster girl of President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda; criss-crossing creeks and slums, fighting poverty head-on, and offering an illuminating image of hope to the masses. For the first time in recent years, palliatives and grants went directly to the real people—the vulnerable. In Kogi State, for instance, over 3000 vulnerable persons received instant cash transfers of #20,000 each a few days before Christmas. For some families that had no hope of what to eat, the #20,000 was obviously the best thing to happen to them on Christmas day. The same gesture was replicated in other states like , Akwa Ibom, Lagos, Bayelsa,Borno, Cross River, etc.
There’s no better time to reactivate the various programmes initiated by Dr. Betta Edu than now. At a critical time as this, programmes like YESSO, Renewed Hope Shelter for Refugees, Poor, and IDPs, Grants for Vulnerable Groups, the At Risk Children Programme, Renewed Hope Home Grown School Feeding and End Hunger, Renewed Hope MSME Loan, N-Power, National Vocational Skills Programme etc., and its various programme managers, ought to be at the forefront of fighting poverty. Imagine for a second that, rather than stashing more funds into the hands of our overly unproductive and avaricious governors, we have these programmes running across various states of the Federation, I am confident that the impact would be more positive than what we are currently experiencing in the hands of our governors.
The continuous suspension of programmes in the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs is manifestly suicidal and antithetical to the overall interest of the masses. The President should, as a matter of urgency and public interest, recall Betta Edu and reactivate the various poverty alleviation programmes under the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs. We cannot continue to burn our houses in order to catch a rat. The President must wake up and smell the coffee, for winter is coming and the angels of darkness and hunger have taken over our nation.
Desmond- Cruz, a public affairs commentator writes from Abuja