seven Northern States Governments have spent N28.3 billion on Ramadan feeding

 

Any policy or project involving religion doesn't allow people to think rationally or ask critical questions. According to BBC Hausa news, seven Northern States Governments have spent N28.3 billion on Ramadan feeding. Indeed, Ramadan feeding is not a bad idea. Helping those who can't help themselves is a noble deed. The problem however is the lack of details and accountability about these religious expenditures. This figure is so huge to be ignored without scrutiny. If Northern Governors had these huge financial resources, there is no reason why they shouldn't put good policies in place to address the pervasive poverty afflicting our people. If our leaders are sincere, they they should implement policies that would make dependence on charity for survival unnecessary. Let them address the conditions that create dependence on charity.  

I hate it when our leaders arrest our intelligence by appealing to our religious emotions to avoid scrutiny. Twenty-eight billion is not a small figure. It is big enough to empower the people to support themselves without depending on Ramadan feeding year after year. Most policies intended to help poor people are usually defeated by the greed of our poverty alleviation managers. Look at how the hyaenas overran the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and plundered over forty billion naira while the poor people they were supposed to help were abandoned to their own fate.

Lack of public scrutiny is the main reason why our poverty alleviation managers can get away with corruption and greed. No one cares about where and how these funds are actually used. Our NGOs that are supposed to be independent actors in promoting accountability are themselves silenced when they are allowed a cut into the so-called national cake. The NGOs have become accomplices in this scandalous diversion of public funds. They give dubious awards to corrupt organizations or individuals in the name of promoting the so-called good governance. Former Humanitarian Affairs Minister Sadiya Farouk claimed that they had spent N12 billion on school feeding during the Covid-19 lock down and APC fans were clapping for her. It took the election of Tinubu to expose the underbelly of corruption in the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs.

The fact is that poverty managers are merely using poor people for their own advantages and profits. When the Conference of Principals of Nigerian Secondary Schools called on the former Buhari administration to scrap the school feeding programme because it was fraught with corruption and fraud, they were ignored. It was only after President Tinubu came into office that we began to see the full scale and extent of corruption and greed in the implementation of the government's poverty alleviation programmes. So, when seven Northern Governors claimed to have spent N28.3 billion on Ramadan feeding, the public deserves to know the details of those expenditures. Transparency and accountability are essential components of good governance. As long as the Nigerian public is indifferent to accountability issues, corruption will get entrenched more deeply and those officials will get away with it.