By Uche Chris
Most southerners, who are appalled by the Minister Betta Edu scandal, and gloating over what they perceived, as prompt and decisive presidential response, really fail to understand the political undercurrents and power dynamics that define Nigerian politics, and the potential challenge it poses to southern leadership of the country.
Dr. Betta Edu is simply a victim of the bigger political schemes and struggles between the Muslim Fulani north, and the south as a collective, over the control of national politics, which is essentially all about the sharing of resources. This is what the Bettagate represents and southerners, including President Tinubu, who try to individualise, and make political capital of it, simply deceive themselves.
President Tinubu, and his southern team in APC, also may have forgotten that though his is an APC government, northerners will not treat him as they treated a Buhari APC government; instead, he would be regarded more like a PDP-led Jonathan government, more or less, a southern president, and Edu is a clear pointer to this differentiating category.
He has to understand from this Edu debacle that to the north, he is a persona non grata, a usurper, and a mere placeholder. Fundamentally, Edu did exactly what her predecessor did of which we are only being abreast now.
As a man coming into power with the major support of the Fulani north, and with a huge image of corruption and other questionable baggages, which were conveniently ignored by them, he stands on slippery grounds as they will constantly expose weaknesses in his administration to make him unelectable in 2027, and therefore, dependent on them.
When President Tinubu claimed he would continue with Buhari’s policies, he was making a judgmental assertion that would work against him, and Edu is one of it. There was nothing wrong in making such a commitment to his predecessor, although, Buhari was an abjectly poor and extremely bigoted leader; but to adopt and implement wholesale his policies, such removing fuel subsidy without planning, was an uncalculated political suicide, which again has manifested in Edu, and more may still come.
Buhari’s worst and most ignorable legacy to Nigeria was the ministry of Humanitarian and Disaster management, (now poverty Alleviation). Justify it by whatever criteria and standard, it was, under him, a cesspool of corruption and a conduit pipe to funnel funds to the north. It lacked clear policy objective, policy implementation strategies and effective structure and coordination. This amorphous nature of the ministry was basically deliberate to avoid accountability. And the minister lacked the administrative clout to manage such a behemoth.
Everybody in this country knew about this but most people either lacked the courage to call Buhari out, or wished that he just be allowed to finish and leave. The ministry disbursed over a trillion naira in four years, yet there is little impact on poverty reduction in any part of the country. So, where did the money go?
The answer to this question is right before us: The investigation of the former minister, Sadiyya Umar Farouk for alleged stealing of N37 billion, and definitely Bettagate. During Covid 19 in 2020, when the entire country was on lockdown, the ministry claimed to have spent over N60 billion in school feeding, as well as hundreds of billion in cash transfers. When the Senate demanded for the records, the office of the Accountant General of Federation, where the files were kept, was touched, end of story.
When President Tinubu tried to replicate such day light robbery with the fuel subsidy palliative, state governors resisted, knowing that the ministry lacked the statistical record and authentic register of the most vulnerable people in the country to undertake the assignment. If that was so, to whom, therefore, did the trillions go?
Corruption does not know gender and tribe; both north and south are deep in it, as evident in the ongoing probe in the ministry. However, there is something so brazen about the Edu action that speaks of impunity being a southerner, which points to a premeditation and bigger plot. Just five months in office, and this level of malfeasance is bewildering.
Edu scandal is a direct fallout of the attempt to probe past corruption in the ministry, when the present minister was sitting on corruption.
Tinubu cannot pretend not to know these facts about the ministry, and that his best action would have been to scrap it altogether to save himself and the administration from such embarrassment. But he wanted to perpetuate this evil against Nigerians, this time, for his people. He forgot that northerners would not tolerate him to do to them what Buhari did to the south. However, hubris and self conceit is the nemesis of most ambitious people and power mongers.
President Tinubu was naive to believe that he could probe the ministry of corruption while his own minister was sitting upon a massive official sleaze without reaction from the north. Even though Edu was the minister, the ministry, which was created for the north and is still controlled by the north could not be interfered with. All the four people facing probe are northerners, including the minister, who was rumoured to be Buhari girlfriend, and currently espoused to former Chief of Air staff, Air Marshall Saddiq Umar. And worse still, most of the beneficiaries of Bettagate are southerners. How does that smell to you if you’re a northerner?
Edu is only a victim of dirty politics of power and corruption by the Tinubu gang. The Permanent Secretary, Nr. Abel Enitan, a Tinubu appointee, is Yoruba; so why didn’t he guide and protect Edu if he was not involved? It was a clash of interests that led to the leaked memo, which exposed Edu.
President Tinubu may pride himself as a master political strategist, but he seems ignorant of our political history and the 1914 charter of Amalgamation, and the power configuration of Nigeria. He also broke a few laws of power, as proposed by Robert Greene, in The 48 Laws of Power. Law 1 says, Never attempt to outshine your master, and Law 20: Don’t commit to anyone. By committing to follow after Buhari’s policy, whose government was obnoxiously corrupt, irredentist, and vengeful, Tinubu unconscionably sold his right to be himself. He cannot, therefore, turn around to take a moral high ground over Buhari by trying to probe him. Furthermore, Law 26 requires that he keeps his hand clean. Tinubu and his minders cannot pretend Bettagate was news to them. The mention of his Chief of staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, as Edu’s sponsor and political godfather, explains why she got such a juicy ministry with little known managerial and public service experience. Being a commissioner in a back water state like Cross River and APC women leader certainly doesn’t merit such high profile seat.
President Tinubu is the bigger victim in this saga, not Edu, because it has further reinforced public perception of him and the APC as corrupt. History now beckons on him: to expand the probe and push it to logical conclusion, which will have serious political implications for him, or forever live under its shadow. The choice is not an easy one.
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