By Osaretin Osadebamwen
Former National Coordinator of the National Social Investment Programme Agency, Hajiya Halimat Shehu, has called out on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to direct the relevant anti-graft agency to make public the findings of the investigation which led to her suspension in January 2024.
She said her integrity, which is her greatest asset and legacy, has been impinged on by the unending suspension, when ordinarily she should be honoured for blowing the whistle against the financial recklessness she noticed were being carried out at the Agency.
“I am pleading with the President to intervene. To let them clear my name. I am not saying I am perfect. There may be administrative lapses. But I am not corrupt. And I did not take the funds of the poor and vulnerable,” She said.
She hu said this Monday morning when she appeared on the Arise morning show fielding questions from the anchors.
She said she has built a track record of honesty and integrity over the years and this development where the findings of an alleged wrongful retransfer has not been concluded and or made public leaves a stain on her integrity.
Shehu said the Economic and financial Crimes Commission EFCC and the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related Commission ICPC, should finalise the investigation and provide an update on the matter so her name would be cleared.
“I was just suspended. No one called me for an explanation to all of this,” she lamented.
According to her: “The EFCC has investigated me. I helped them to do their job while I was in office. I did a whistleblow.
“I gave them documents and I gave them facts. In all of this matter, what I am trying to let Nigerians understand is that there are facts. And facts don’t lie.”
Enumerating these facts, She said she noticed some strange transactions effected from unauthorized signatures and called the attention of the World Bank and the anti-graft agency and wondered why she should be the culprit in the whole mess.
Her words: There is the conditional cash transfer office. I heard at that point in time, there was a drawdown of over $300 million out of the $800 million World Bank supported for, all efforts to reach the program managers to sit with me to know how disbursement of the funds will be carried out, failed.
“At that time, I had to reach to the World Bank country director and the team. And I had to let them know that that office is under my purview. On no account should they directly work with the minister because I cannot account for her excesses.
“How unauthorized signatories became signatories to the CBN account. Remita account of the NSIPA.” was curious, she said.
According to her “When the financial control violations were above me, I called on the EFCC chairman while I was in office on 21st of December, 2023, before my suspension, and I handed over a letter to him stating out all this violation of financial regulations in the agency, monies moving out of the CBN account to the destination where they were moving.
“There were no hearsays. I documented, and I handed over to him. And the letter was addressed to His Excellency, the President, and at that point, he told me that he would escalate appropriately.
“Then again, I called on the ICPC chairman before my suspension to let them know all the ongoings of the agency, including additional unauthorized signatures that were added to the SIPA’s account without my approval. And all of this, I thought, would be escalated.
“But to my utter shock, no one of them got back to me, and I was suspended just 10 weeks after I had escalated to them.
“Up until this moment, I haven’t heard anything about the whistleblowing that I did. I thought I was supposed to be honored for the proactive measures I took. I thought I was supposed to be protected.
“But my suspension came. On what? Transfer of $44 billion into private account, which until this moment, I will tell you, they are false allegations against Halima Shehu. I never transferred $44 billion to any personal account.
“And the EFCC never recovered a penny from my personal account or from my family’s or from any of my friends’ personal accounts. These are transactions from CBN corporate account to beneficiaries personal accounts. So it should be put out there in the media.
“If this is what you said I did, I am someone who was mandated to empower through cash transfers. Right now, cash transfers are going on at the Conditional Cash Transfer Office.
“This is exactly the allegations I was alleged to have transferred to beneficiaries. This is exactly the way these programs are carried out. I did not design the implementation of the programs,” she stated.
