‘Resign Now’ – Reps Tell Humanitarian Affairs Minister Sadiya Farouq

The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, Sadiya Umar Farouq, has been asked to resign over her failure to honour repeated invitations of the House of Representatives.

Chairman of the Reps Committee on Appropriation, Aliyu Betara, called for the minister’s resignation during the committee’s investigative hearing on an allegation of budget padding against her ministry.

According to Betara, Farouq’s constant dodging of interrogation by various committees of the lower legislative chamber was unbecoming and should no longer be tolerated by the legislature.

The minister was scheduled to appear before the Reps committee to respond to questions of the alleged padding to the tune of N206 billion in her ministry’s 2023 budget but failed to show up.

Farouq’s action annoyed the committee’s chairman who asked her to resign “If she is not ready for the job,” noting that “most times the committee calls the minister,” she shuns the lawmakers’ invitation.

The Humanitarian Affairs Ministry was alleged to have inserted N206,242,395,000 billion into its budget for purchase of mosquito nets under its National Social Safety Nets Project which is already being funded by the World Bank.

In an attempt to exonerate herself, Farouq earlier explained that the sum was erroneously inserted into the budget.

“The project was correctly described in the submission in the 2023 budget, but unfortunately the Budget Office used wrong code,” she claimed.

The Humanitarian Affairs Ministry under Farouq’s watch coordinates the Buhari administration’s Special Intervention Programmes (SIPs) which have gulped hundreds of billions of Naira.