The need to reinstate the suspended Minister for Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr. Betta Edu, to continue with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda on Humanitarian Response and Poverty Alleviation Programmes in Nigeria has been stressed.
The national leadership of the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) made this known in a press release signed by its spokesman, Comrade Bedford Berefa, after its monthly meeting in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State Capital.
The IYC said Dr. Betta Edu has been a formidable force in President Tinubu’s cabinet, ,delivering on core mandate and the brief of her ministry, stressing that returning her to continue her national assignment in the federal cabinet was a popular request.
“Following our investigations and general assessment of her stewardship, Nigerians, ,especially the poor and vulnerable, are calling for her reinstatement, ,and IYC has joined in this popular call.”
“While we are not undermining the anti-graft agency’s efforts to dig in full what has been happening in the Humanitarian Affairs Ministry, it is clear that the enemy of the current administration is out to go after the faces of the ‘first eleven’ of the Renewed Hope Team, where Betta Edu is visible and standing tall, “the IYC added.
Continuing, the Ijaw Youth Council Worldwide said: “According to Nigeria Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Poverty and Inequality in Nigeria” Report, 40.1% of the total population, or almost 83 million people, live below the country’s poverty line.
“These statistics have increased significantly owing to the current harsh economic realities and inflation rate of 33.2% in March 2024.
“The hope of vulnerable and poor Nigerians in President Tinubu is high, and they fervently expect him to reach out to them as part of the renewed hope agenda of his administration to end hunger, through a Minister who can match words with action and visibility across the six geopolitical zones of the country, and that Minister is Dr. Edu.
“Dr. Betta Edu, within her four and a half months in office, had significantly impacted the poor and vulnerable population, irrespective of their locations.
“We use this medium to appeal to the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led federal government to, as a matter of urgency, reinstate Dr. Edu. We observed that she attracted so many enemies within the ministry due to her cleanse operation, which got some with soiled hands bitter about her result oriented approach to tackling humanitarian and poverty alleviation issues in the country.”
The Ijaw youth body believes that “the witch hunting of Dr. Edu was orchestrated by mischief makers who do not mean when for the Tinubu administration and because ,one of his poster girls is a young, dynamic, energetic, and result oriented Minister from the South South region.”
The IYC lamented that “her suspension has exposed the intervention gap within the humanitarian and poverty alleviation cluster in the country.”