From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The increasing incidences of fraud allegations against elective and appointive female Nigerian politicians facing various degrees of trials at both the regular courts and the anti-corruption agencies, have continued to agitate the minds of critical observers. Indeed, it has put a question mark on the perception that women are more honest than their men counterparts in positions of leadership.
Many analysts believe that the proportion of their involvements, especially in the current Fourth Republic, completely negates the long-held assumption that women politicians are trustworthy, and prudent in the management and utilisation of public funds than their male counterparts.
Not a few are tempted to believe that perhaps, claims that women in politics are more honest, could possibly be in developed countries unlike in Nigeria where four high-profile cases seem to seriously discredit the very few Nigerian women in politics.
From Sadiya Umar-Farouq, former Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disasters Management and Social Development who is facing alleged N729 billion charge after serving under former President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration, her successor, Betta Edu, currently being investigated over an allegation of N585 million fraud to the current Minister of Women Affairs, Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye, battling to extricate herself from N1.5 billion alleged fraud and the All Progressives Congress (APC) Woman Leader, Mary Alile-Idele, defending herself from wrapper diversion allegation, the clean bill of health for women politicians is having a question mark.
While the first three have continued with the battle to prove their innocence from the fraudulent allegations, running into millions and billions of Naira, the last one, a member of APC national leadership, accused of diversion of some sizeable number from the wrappers donated by the First Lady, Oluremi Tinubu to the Nigerian women across the country, has continued the fight to disentangle herself from the allegation.
In retrospect, both Sadiya Umar-Farouq and Betta Edu who have been in the eye of the storm over their failure to account for certain expenditures have currently been under the radar of the anti-graft investigators, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Again, only last week, the House of Representatives turned into a battleground as the House Committee on Women Affairs and the Minister of Women Affairs, Kennedy-Ohanenye, engaged each other in fierce heated altercations over missing N1.5 billion meant for the payment of contractors.
Just last month, protesters, on several occasions, had grounded activities at the national headquarters of the ruling party calling for the head of its Woman Leader over discrediting allegations of the questionable distributions of wrappers largesse from the First Lady.
Before the quartets, there were other high-profile fraud litigations involving Nigerian female politicians, comprising the likes of Stella Oduah Ogiemwonyi, Diezani Alison Maduake, Patricia Olubunmi Foluke Etteh, Iyabor Obasanjo, Sarah Reng Ochekpe, Adenike Grange, and Pauline Kedem Tallen, among others, including Kemi Adeosun, involved in a fake certificate scandal.
For Stella Oduah, senator and former Minister of Aviation, sacked on February 12, 2014, she has been facing trial over her alleged involvement in a scandal of N255 million purchases of armoured cars. She was accused of procuring the cars for the agency under her supervision at inflated prices.
She was equally inducted by the EFCC in the same 2014 of connivance with a Chinese construction giant, in an alleged fraudulent cash transaction of about N5 billion. Her four company accounts were frozen and her trial in the law court is still active.
As for Patricia Etteh, former Speaker, House of Representatives, she was accused of authorising $5 million for the renovation of her official residence and that of her deputy. She was also interrogated by the EFCC for an alleged receipt of N130 million payments from a contractor with the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) awarded solar-powered electrification project in Akwa-Ibom state. But apart from resigning her position as Speaker due to intense pressure, no record has shown that she has ever been indicted.
Another female politician who served in an appointive capacity is Ochekpe. She served as the Minister of Water Resources from 2011 to 2015. Although her tenure was marked with positive achievements, the alleged scandal against her was her involvement in money laundering and conspiracy in a deal worth N450 million.She was reportedly convicted by a Federal High Court for her involvement in money laundering allegedly traced to funds fraudulently distributed by an ex-Petroleum Minister. Her whereabouts is not known as she had maintained a very low profile after the saga.
The most controversial of all is the involvement of Diezani Alison Maduake, the first Nigerian Minister of Petroleum Resources appointed in April 2010. Despite her ground-breaking records, she has serially been under interrogation by the EFCC and tried at several courts of law over corruption, money laundering, and financial misconduct.
She was equally accused of organising a diversion of $28 billion from the Nigerian treasury, awarding multi-billion naira contracts without due process, and spending multi-billion naira on a private jet. The allegations against her have been unprecedentedly multi-dimensional and shocking to many Nigerians.
Also worth mentioning is Iyabo Obasanjo, a then Senator who came under investigation due to her blunt failure to return N1 million unspent budget and proceeds of fraud involving a former Minister of Health.
She had insisted that the money was spent on capacity building for some members of the Health Committee held in Ghana. The case was however thrown out of an Abuja High Court in 2009 for lack of merit.
Pauline Tallen, former Minister of Women Affairs, may not have been tried formally by the EFCC or in any court of law over her alleged involvement in misappropriating N2 billion from the African First Lady Peace Mission Project (AFLPM), but she, however, admitted that she visited the office of the anti-graft agency.
Hear her: “Owing to the respect for my former principal, former President Buhari, and his good office, I did not previously address the open allegation; however, it has now become necessary to do so. Firstly, the appropriate action, should this have been a genuine inquiry, would be to write to the Ministry for Women Affairs, to enquire about any funds sent to the Ministry.
“To immediately jump to the open without any proper formal correspondence is highly unprofessional, portrays a lack of respect for the ministry, and injurious to my person and character. Furthermore, I would like to state that there was no formal invitation from the anti-graft agency nor was I arrested.”
Pundits agree that there are serious disparity in the numerical strength of male politicians allegedly accused of misappropriating public funds compared to their female counterparts, yet the involvement of the female politicians has understandably generated more controversies and publicities.
The reasons for the astonishment and wide publicity are not farfetched. It, perhaps, has everything to do with the long-held impressions that women are not only better fund managers but also less susceptible to crime and criminalities.
Many pundits have hinged the recent disturbing trend, very noticeable since the beginning of the fourth republic; on loose morals, subjugation of ethical behaviour, and environmental influences male counterparts, families, friends, and associates put on the female politicians and appointees.
Before the current republic, women politicians and political activists like Hajiya Gambo Sawaba, the most jailed Nigerian female politician, and very few others, were in the public glare. It was not because of fraudulent involvement but for the hostilities meted to them to discourage and stamp them out of constituting strong force against their male counterparts.
They were sometimes publicly flogged, had their hair shaved off with broken bottles, and imprisoned several times, especially in the North but not for their involvement in fraudulent embezzlement of public funds.
In the early part of the Fourth republic, female politicians actually applied a high sense of decorum and decency in their operations and participation in politics. In such a list include the late Dora Akunyili, Oby Ezekwesili, Aisha Jummai Al-Hassan aka Mama Taraba, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Iyom Josephine Aneni, among others who served selflessly.
However, during successive administrations, women political and social activists felt cheated and had to deploy all manner of emotional blackmail, including insistence on a certain percentage of affirmative actions, and obvious disparity in the purchase of expression of interest and nomination forms, to tactically corner certain elective and appointive positions.
But, when Nigerians thought that women politicians are devoid of corruption, many of them have let several people down by their undoing with public funds.
However, in defence of their alleged involvements, they have, understandably, claimed innocence and in most cases, wriggled out of the allegations whipping up all manner of sentiments. Interestingly, among the few that have been arrested, and tried, very insignificant few have been convicted and jailed so far.
Expectedly, dismissing the allegations of corrupt expenses of N1.5 billion while appearing at the House of Representatives Committee on Women Affairs and Social Development, the Minister, Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye, had explained that the contractors are owed due to the failure to release the total sum.
In what many believed indicted First Ladies, she had further elucidated that though 30 per cent of the total sum meant for the contractors was paid to her ministry, she cannot, however, give an account of how it was spent because the First Lady, Oluremi Tinubu, had advised her to mind her business.
“If not that the money for this year has been delayed, I’m sure we wouldn’t be here today because we could have paid out some of these liabilities. But since this year, no project money has been released to any ministry. And that was a constraint.
“About the First Lady’s funds and the N500 million you were talking about, I wasn’t there when it happened. When I came in, I saw it on the Appropriation Act. And I went to my First Lady, we discussed and she said that that particular money was not meant for her.
“That it was meant for the former First Lady because that was when that money was allocated. And the former First Lady later called me and said they wanted to use it and buy a generator. And in the process, she was out of the country. It took her a while. She came back, called me, and she brought the person to organise how they would get the generator. And I introduced that person to the procurement officer then, who is now retired so that they could work it out according to the rules and regulations of procurement.
“They have been on it. Once in a while, I talk with the First Lady to find out what is going on. And that is the last I heard of that,” she explained, extricating herself and partially indicting the First Ladies.
Similarly, in a statement to absolve herself, signed by her spokesperson, Rasheed Olanrewaju Zubair, Edu vehemently denied any involvement in the alleged corruption, labelling it false and unfounded.
It read: “Edu is fully aware of the baseless allegations, suspected to be instigated by certain individuals with ulterior motives, aimed at implicating her in the ongoing investigation into the NSIPA scandal by the anti-graft agency.
“The allegations against the minister were spurious and suspected to have been sponsored by some fifth columnists aimed at dragging her name into the ongoing investigations of the NSIPA scandal by the EFCC. Ordinarily, there is no substance in the said publication currently in some online media, and does not deserve a response, but there is a need to set the record straight for Nigerians and followers of the current development in NSIPA under the ministry to be properly informed.”
Equally claiming to be innocent, Sadiya Umar-Farouq, in a rebuttal in a message posted on her X (formerly Twitter) also denied involvement, noting that; “There have been several reports linking me to a purported investigation by the EFCC into the activities of someone completely unknown to me.
“He neither worked for nor represented me in any way whatsoever. The linkages and associations to my person are spurious. While I resist the urge to engage in any media trial whatsoever, I have however contacted my legal team to explore possible options to seek redress for the malicious attack on my person.
“I remain proud to have served my country as a minister with every sense of responsibility and would defend my actions, stewardship, and programmes during my tenure whenever I am called upon to do so.”
However, regardless of their defence, the anti-corruption agency, the EFCC, had recently insisted that Betta Edu, Sadiya Farouq, and other suspects facing investigations are not yet absolved of the corruption allegations of fraud against them.
The EFCC, emphatically noted in a statement signed by Head of Media and Publicity, Dele Oyewale, that it; “has not cleared anyone allegedly involved in the fraud. Investigations are ongoing and advancing steadily. The public is enjoined to ignore any claim to the contrary.”
Reacting to the increasing cases of involvement of women politicians in fraudulent financial dealings, a political leader told Daily Sun on conditions of anonymity that it is a confirmation that no sex is more susceptible to fraud than the other.
He said: “All of a sudden, social, family, and contemporary influences have pushed female politicians into thinking that what the men can do, they can even do better. You cannot rule out their resolution not to continue getting crumbs from the proceeds of corruption from men.
“Like men, they equally want to build houses, drive big exotic cars, and spend money they make from politics whichever way they want to. I can’t understand why people raise their voices to complain when female politicians are involved in fraudulent mismanagement of public funds as if women are superhuman and not living in the same clime. We often make the mistake of equating women politicians with the innocence of our housewives who prudently spend the funds their husbands give them for upkeep. Public fund is a national cake to them.
“One thing is however certain, and accept or reject it; there are very insignificant few women in politics that are still very submissive to men, including their husbands. Any woman in politics will certainly sacrifice humility and submissiveness to the dogs because politics is not a game for the feeble-hearted.
“However, I still feel that greater numbers of male politicians are guilty of fraudulent embezzlement of public funds than female politicians. The problem is that society frowns at the increasing involvement of women politicians from unethical perspectives. What should concern us is that most of the cases have ended up as media trials.”
What is certain, according to critics, is that Nigerians would see the proliferation of more female politicians and more allegations of their involvement in fraudulent embezzlement of public funds.
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