An advertorial published in the Daily Trust issue of Monday, August 7, 2022, which was signed by one “Mallam Bibi Dogo”, is as unreadable as it is infantile. Starting from the title – “OPEN LETTER TO MUHAMMADU BUHARI GCFR PRESIDENT AND COMMANDER IN-CHIEF FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA… WHY SADIYYA UMAR FAROUK SHOULD BE REMOVE FROM OFFICE” – the writer, who describes himself as “Elder statesman, a critical Stake Holder in Bauchi Local Government, Bauchi State”, assaults readers of his lies-infested “open letter” with crooked sentences, misspelled words, horrible grammar and libellous statements capable of making the reader weep over the quality of education in our country. In the lengthy treatise unsupported by facts, Dogo presented a two-pronged attack against the Honourable Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouq: one, she is not performing well as a Minister and, two, she interferes in the politics of Bauchi State instead of concentrating on her primary responsibility. To achieve his target, he quoted opposition figures, including Bauchi State government officials and national officers of the PDP, as well as anonymous sources, as proof that all is not well with the Buhari Administration’s flagship and laudable National Social Investment Programmes (NSIP), which Hajiya Sadiya superintends.
As he struggled to communicate in his poor prose, he praised his obvious sponsors and advocated that the Minister should be sacked by President Muhammadu Buhari, claiming that she supports her husband, Air Marshal Abubakar Sadique (retd), the APC governorship candidate for Bauchi State in the 2023 general election, in his bid to win against the ruling PDP in the state. The core of his message, no doubt, is that Sadiya is helping to threaten the PDP stranglehold in the state and she should be taken out of the way at all cost. It is apparent he and his sponsors earnestly believe that, without her in office as Minister, they would have a smooth ride and easily coast to victory in the 2023 general election. Their poor reading of the situation persuades them into thinking that Mr. President should do away with one of his ardent loyalists and performing ministers in order to allow the PDP, rather than Mr. President’s own party, to continue to rule in Bauchi State! From there come their desperate pull-her-down gimmicks of mischievous press releases and advertorials that are stewed in crude concoction of lies. Dogo did not state, however, that she abused her office by using public funds to support her husband’s ambition.
Ordinarily, such piece of false propaganda should not deserve a response even by key stakeholders like us, but because unsuspecting Nigerians might be deceived into believing some of the wild claims contained in the advertorial, it is necessary to dignify Dogo with this reply and present the facts as they are. Indeed, we expect to see more untruths and mudslinging coming from political jobbers like Dogo in the coming weeks and months as the campaigns for 2023 gather momentum.
Please help us to decipher what Dogo means here: “The minister allegedly has opted to be intrusive in juvenile politics in Bauchi State, which if not because of the doggedness steadfastness or loyalty of the State Governor Senator Bala Muhammad Abdulkadir to the Federal Government under the leadership of Mr President, it will have result into chaos and crisis. Sadiyya allegedly apart from sidelining the State Government in her activities, except where she has no choice, she favoured only family and supporters of her Husband, in her quest to implement the laudable Federal Government programme that are supposed to benefit the entire people of the state without discrimination, she decided to politicize the legitimate programme to achieve her husband Political ambition.”
Let’s leave the faulty grammar and incongruous sentences for now and try to understand what the self-appointed “elder statesman” is trying to say. Obviously, he is referring to the National Social Investment Programmes (NSIP) that Hajiya Sadiya supervises as minister and claiming that the beneficiaries of the various NSIP interventions in Bauchi State are the members of her husband’s family and his supporters only. How uncouth some untruths can be! Also, on the issue of loyalty, is Governor Bala [Kauran Bauchi] more loyal to Mr. President and the Federal Government than Minister Sadiya? Because we keep tabs on the activities of the Ministry very well, we will put this and other key allegations of Dogo side by side the facts which show otherwise:
• The Honourable Minister refuses to release money meant for the Home-Grown School Feeding Programme in Bauchi State.
Fact: Bauchi, like other states of the federation, is within the radar of the Humanitarian Affairs Ministry and the Buhari Administration’s SIPs. Hundreds of thousands of Bauchi State people have benefitted and are still benefitting from the various SIP arms: N-Power, National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme, and the Government Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Programme (under which Tradermoni, Marketmoni and Farmermoni and the Conditional Cash Transfer are captured). Of the 1,603,617 pupils benefiting from the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme in the North-East geopolitical zone, 444,099 are from Bauchi State; they were in 20 schools selected by the state government. These figures are verifiable. We know many people in the state whose life has been changed by these laudable programmes. And, in the mainstream media as well as on social media, we read and listen to the testimonies of the underprivileged as well as victims of natural disasters in the state regularly.
• There is a deliberate slowdown in implementation of N-Power as well as selective payments of beneficiaries.
Fact: Of the 1,064,774 youths up-skilled in the graduate and non-graduate programmes under the N-Power scheme, the number of beneficiaries from Bauchi State ranked 11th out of the 36 states and the FCT. Bauchi was next after Benue, Delta, Enugu, FCT, Kaduna, Kano, Lagos, Osun, Oyo and Rivers states. Of the almost 10 million school children being fed one hot nutritious meal every school day, Bauchi has the fourth highest number of beneficiaries.
The payment system is transparent and verifiable using the FEC-approved NASIMS platform where each beneficiary sees on the platform reason(s) of payment, and if there is no reason of non-payment owing to truancy or transaction failure. The five months’ allowances owed 14,021 flagged in March 2020 was caused by FG payment platform GIFMIS for various reasons, including having multiple accounts or for participating in other schemes in Bauchi State. One hundred and ninety-one of such flagged beneficiaries have been cleared and paid.
Batch C1 N-Power beneficiaries have been receiving their monthly stipends. Their June stipend has been uploaded for payment and that of July is being processed.
• The South-East has been marginalized in SIPs.
Fact: In the South-East, a total number of 778,450 pupils in 93 schools are being fed under the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme. The total number of N-Power beneficiaries in the South-East is 136,629.
The truth is obvious. As Minister Sadiya stated recently, the SIP has so far reduced the poverty index in Nigeria to 43%. Of course, this epoch-making watershed which provides the much-needed succour to the poor and vulnerable Nigerians may not have been without drawbacks as issues concerning delay in payment of stipends to some beneficiaries, deployment to PPAs, Nexit loans, fund limitations and some administrative hiccups crop up at times, but they are always addressed promptly — to the joy of the complainers who often fail to report back to the media.
This space cannot be enough for us to list the various achievements of the Ministry and SIP over the years in Bauchi State and elsewhere. The first time the anti-Sadiya campaign from Bauchi [over alleged neglect of the state by the Ministry] was publicised, early last month, her Special Assistant’s response to a fictitious group named “APC Initiative for Good Governance” was detailed: more than 20 million Nigerians have so far been empowered through various programmes and initiatives of the Ministry.
Suffice it to say, however, that Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouq is an indefatigable, committed and patriotic public servant who has received commendations from the lowly and the highly placed, including NGOs and global partners, for touching lives in amazing ways ever since she was appointed Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development less than three years ago. She spreads love evenly to the poor and vulnerable, regardless of their state of origin, tribe or religion – in line with Mr. President’s social-inclusion concerns.
As we write this, the minister is doing her job well in Abuja, focusing on the mandate given to her by Mr. President. The politics going on in her husband’s state is, for her, a secondary preoccupation. Her husband, a former Chief of Air Staff and Ambassador who retired honourably, is strong and experienced enough to work on his victory at the polls. She is not on the ballot, but as a loyal member of the APC she wishes all of the party’s candidates in every state of the country success. If she has any support to give him as a spouse and an experienced politician, she is expected to do so, but she definitely will not divert public funds to oil anybody’s political campaigns as Dogo and his ilk think. The benefits of the SIPs are not meant to be enjoyed by one section of the political divide alone but by all the poor in Nigeria.
“Critical Stake Holder” [SIC] Bibi Dogo wasted enormous space to sing the praises of his sponsors. The majority of the electorate in Bauchi State would sneer at the imaginary achievements he crows about, since the beneficiaries don’t live on the moon. If his performance were “high”, we the people wouldn’t need jingles on radio and television – or the wishy-washy advertorial signed by Dogo – to understand. We wouldn’t unleash “the quantum of negative criticisms, spurious allegations… and challenges” that now assails his sponsors!
It is noteworthy that Dogo took a swipe at the APC gubernatorial candidate, Air Marshal Abubakar Sadique (retd), whose popularity across the state is well known. Sadique has seen the truth in the sentiments expressed daily by the long-suffering people of our state and is bent on relieving our pains as our next governor. At the same time, he still offers useful advice to the relevant quarters on the issue of security in the country, which he does not have to advertise, contrary to Dogo’s mischievous claim.
May misguided, self-styled “elder statesmen” begin to shun pecuniary benefits from failed politicians, write the truth always, and be on the right side of history.
* Alhaji Bello Abubakar Azare is a member of the Bauchi Unity Circle, Bauchi
