The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, Sadiya Umar Farouq, will on Tuesday meet with media leaders and civil society groups in Lagos to clear the air on some burning issues.

The meeting comes a day after the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission revealed that over N2.6bn school feeding program money had been diverted into private accounts.

Though that discovery had nothing to do with Farouq and her ministry as it was traced to a senior civil servant in the Ministry of Agric, who is now said to be late, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs had to initiate the Lagos meeting, according to a source, to further protect herself as there had also been an earlier issue around school feeding involving her office.

For instance, in August her ministry disclosed that over N500m was spent to feed school pupils during the lockdown put in place by the government to curb the spread of COVID-19 in Nigeria.

Being largely at home during that period, the claim of feeding school children with such amounts at the time angered many Nigerians.

Before that time in April, the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management was accused of dubiously converting the March salary of N-Power beneficiaries to COVID-19 palliatives by the Nigerian Government.

In a document exclusively obtained, the ministry spearheaded the move despite a warning by stakeholders in the scheme.

Sources in the ministry disclosed that tagging N-Power salary as Nigerian Government COVID-19 palliatives was a ploy to divert funds originally meant for the palliative.

It is as a result of these and other issues involving the ministry that the minister is said to be meeting media leaders and civil society groups in Lagos on Tuesday.

“There is pressure on her especially with issues involving her ministry. The scandals are becoming too much, she is desperate to change the perception of the public about the activities of the ministry and that is part of the reason the Lagos meeting was organised,” the source added.

Rtn. Victor Ojelabi

Ojelabi, the publisher of Freelanews, is an award winning and professionally trained mass communicator, who writes ruthlessly about pop culture, religion, politics and entertainment.