The Federal High Court, Abuja, presided over by Justice Nkeonye Maha, recently summoned the Minister for Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Dr Betta Edu, to appear and give full account of how her ministry spent N535.8 million for “school feeding” during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns in 2020.

The programme, carried out by then minister, Sadiya Umar Farouq, outraged Nigerians who wondered how such an activity was possible when all schools had closed and children sent home to join their families in the pandemic lockdowns. Despite criticisms, Farouq went ahead to spend the said amount.

A concerned activist group, the Kingdom Human Rights Foundation, KHRF, instituted a Freedom of Information Act 2011, FOIA, enquiry to get the details of the spending from the former minister, which she ignored until she left office in May 2023.

The group, which claimed that the “school feeding” was “a scam, cover-up and well-articulated fiction to embezzle public funds”, went to court in line with the Act’s requirements, to obtain a legal mandate to ensure the details of the spending were made available to the public.

With a new appointee in charge of the Ministry, it would have been ideal to have the former Minister come in person, perhaps along with the incumbent, to clear the air since she was the one who carried out the controversial programme. A former minister who ignored FOIA inquiries can easily refuse to respond to queries from the current occupant of the office who obviously may not know the whole story about the spending.

Only a direct court summons on former Minister Sadiya Umar-Farouq will enable the Judge and the Nigerian public to get all the answers they need to give the case a proper closure. We hope appropriate steps will be taken in that direction.

Nigerians are watching this case because of the amount of dust it raised when it was made public. This is more so, especially as this is the first instance when an official in the Muhammadu Buhari regime will be called out to account for an aspect of her duty tour.

This case has once again highlighted the importance of social advocacy and rights groups in a democratic society such as ours. It also shows the importance of the FOIA, which has remained largely unutilised despite its capacity as a tool to hold public officials to account.

Without these social leverages, it would have been almost impossible to bring Umar-Farouq to account since she is a member of the All Progressives Congress, APC, which controls the current Federal Government.

We commend the KHRF advocates for their tenacity, and urge them to follow this case without compromise till the truth behind the school feeding under lockdown is made known to the public.

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