ZIK GBEMRE SPEAKS ON SEN NWOKO’S BILL PLAN TO REPLACE HUMANITARIAN AFFAIRS MINISTRY PUERILE

Why are the Nigerian elites, especially the political class, becoming increasingly disappointing and petty?

I hear Sen Ned Nwoko’s Bill to replace the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs with establishment of a National Social Security Agency has passed first, perhaps, second reading.

Coming from a self important lawyer, I find this bill very puerile. And even more appalling is seeing a Senate of redundant lawmakers giving such a bill attention.

How does a cosmetic change of nomenclature or redesign of the structure correct the wanton looting of set funds for the ministry or the intended agency?

President Bola Tinubu has just appointed a new minister to oversee the ministry and we know what informed that. Betta Edu who was removed to appoint a new minister has a case of embezzlement in billions of naira of the ministry’s fund hanging on her neck.

For Tinubu and his government, sacking Betta Edu may just be enough punishment. She walks free, still very much in the corridors of power. A partisan EFCC is acting like it has no evidence weighty enough to try her.

Before Edu, her predecessor in the ministry under President Mohammadu Buhari left office with even more mind burgling allegations of looting of the ministry’s fund.

Despite the glaring body of evidence in public domain, she remains untouchable, a compromised law enforcement and the judiciary playing drama with her trial.

So Ned Nwoko and the Senate need to be enlightened that the problem with the existing ministry has nothing to do with the name you call it or how you restructure it.

The real challenge is that people assigned to manage funds meant for school feeding programme, traders grants, skills acquisition, refugees welfare, disaster management and all forms of social investments enjoying unhindered looting of the set funds.

The real challenge is even with begging indicting evidences, no sincere consequence action is taken against the suspected looters to deter others from the sustained wanton looting.

The Federal Government chose managers of the structures on compassion and partisan sentiments against merit and capacity. So when they mess up, loot, they are not held accountable.

Betta Edu may have been relieved of duty as minister but it is still highly rumoured that she still travels very often and mill around with the globetrotting President.

So the bill Nwoko and the Senate need is not on transferring the wine from an old skin into a new bottle. No. That doesn’t change the taste of the wine.

What is expected of Nwoko and his Senate colleagues is strong oversights to ensure that law enforcement, in this case anti graft agencies collaborate with the Judiciary in sincerity to ensure looters don’t go unpunished.

What they need are laws to punish stakeholders, law enforcement agencies and the judiciary who compromise the law and their conscience to cover up looting of the commonwealth are punished to serve as deterrent.

The Senate should be well informed. Ned Nwoko’s bill is childish, debating it is a meaningless argument.

Changing a ministry plagued by corruption to an agency would not change anything. It’s bloody waste of time, distraction to good governance.

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