Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has described the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management as a cesspool of corruption, lacking in transparency and accountability.
In a statement in Abuja on Sunday being 2nd August, 2020, HURIWA Alleged that the ministry was a cash guzzling machine and financial disaster.
The pro-democracy non-governmental organisation insisted that the minister in charge must be made to explain how she spent billions of naira ‘feeding pupils’ during the three months lockdown, when the children were at their homes in different parts of the country.
In a statement by the National Coordinator of HURIWA, Emmanuel Onwubiko, and the National Media Affairs Director, Zainab Yusuf, the group said the minister, Hajiya Sadiya Farouq Umar, should be asked by Nigerians to provide clarification on the claim that her ministry delivered palliatives to each and every Nigerian.
“This despicable and opaque feeding programme happened despite a groundswell of well-informed opposition to the disastrous idea, only because the executioners had allegedly choreographed the primitive ways of siphoning public fund in the guise of feeding ghost school children.
“The minister should prove us wrong, if she can, with facts and figures for all to see and judge,” it said.
The group argued that the minister might face litigation if she refused to clarify the deeply annoying bogus claim attributed to her.
HURIWA said, “It is totally absurd and completely unprovable that Nigeria spends N679 million daily to feed school children.
This political and morally-tainted bogus claim is one of the most insensitive lies to have been told by any politician because this is clearly false, since experts have told us with abundant scientifically empirical evidence that 50 per cent under-five children are malnourished in all parts of Nigeria, especially in majority of the North East of Nigeria.”
It, however, challenged the minister to a public debate on Wednesday, August 5, to tell Nigerians the amount she spent feeding school children during the lockdown.
