A civil rights group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, (HURIWA) on Friday, described the annual allocation of $1 billion for the National Social Investment Programme by the Federal Government as the biggest fraud in Africa.
The National Coordinator of HURIWA, Emmanuel Onwubiko, in a statement, protested that it is unfortunate that the programme started by President Muhammadu Buhari in 2016 has been a conduit for siphoning billions of taxpayers’ funds. HURIWA said it is glaring even to the unsound minds that it is impracticable that government is spending so much money on the poor but the population of the poor keeps doubling up since 2015 to a toxic extent that Nigeria became the poverty capital of the world in 2018 thus overtaking India with approximately 90 million absolutely poor families. Besides, HURIWA dismissed the involvement of some handpicked and well paid Non-governmental organisations to monitor the activities of the office of the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management in the execution of the Social welfare initiative of the Buhari administration, just as HURIWA wondered how a set of non-governmental bodies hired as contractors would be independent and objective.
The group demanded a comprehensive audit of the programme since its inception and challenged the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Farouq, to publish a detailed account of the ministry since she took over office and also publish the list of beneficiaries from inception.
HURIWA said such account should contain names of all the vendors working for the government on the project, their addresses, owners, and other important verifiable details.
HURIWA cited the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development to have said: “NSIP is one of the largest social protection programmes in Africa, with over $1 billion earmarked annually to cause positive change in the lives of the poorest and the most vulnerable in the country.
“Let me use this opportunity to inform us that over 12 million households had benefitted from NSIP interventions in the last five years.”
HURIWA’s Onwubiko declared: “The National Social Investment Programme which include the School-Feeding Programme is the perhaps the biggest fraud scheme in the whole of Africa. This is the most significant governmental fraud to have ever been activated in Africa because apart from being opaque, it is also characterised by absolutely falsehoods especially in the so-called school feeding programme whereby pupils are fed with obviously poorly prepared foods that taste like foods that are fed to local breed of dogs in the villages.
“The poorly made foods given to school pupils is distasteful despite the humongous amount been spent. The last time Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo tasted the food, his face spoke another language that showed his displeasure. HURIWA make bold to ask if any government official’s child is a pupil in the schools where the foods are being served? We remembered that even governor Nasir El-Rufai’s son that was comically enlisted in a public school in Kaduna was almost immediately withdrawn before he could partake in the eating of the food that can at best be obviously described as POISONOUS CHALICE”.
The group pointed out that the programme has been marred with several cases of fraud as since in November 2019 when the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission arrested two persons involved in a N68,097,053 fraud. Also, in September 2020, the ICPC said investigations done showed that N2.67 billion released for school feeding of the 104 Unity Colleges during the COVID-19 lockdown found its way into individual accounts.
The statement further read: “But as usual, nothing has been done to unearth the rot and the corruption obvious in the programme that has become a conduit to siphon billions of taxpayers’ funds.
“HURIWA demands a comprehensive forensic audit into the accounts of the Humanitarian Affairs Ministry. Nigerians need to know. Enough of the charade and shenanigan!” “It must be made known to these officials that history will be so unkind to them for feeding Nigerian kids with poorly prepared foods and then end up announcing humonguous amount appropriated for such show of shame.”