Nigeria’s interior minister Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo has admitted that he owns company shares that received almost half a billion naira from the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation.

The New Planet Project Limited was paid 438 million naira as consultancy fees by the ministry in 2023 for a social register project.

The payment came to light after the minister for humanitarian minister Betta Edu was accused of wanting to divert about half a billion naira to a private account.

President Bola Tinubu suspended Edu on Monday, days after the head of the social investment fund agency Halima Shehu was suspended over alleged corruption.

The agency is under Edu’s ministry.

Tunji-Ojo is still listed as a director in New Planet Project Limited. He insisted that he resigned from the company in 2019 after he won an election to the House of Representatives.

He, however, admitted that he still owns shares in the firm but denied allegations that he used his influence to win the contract for the company.

“I do not run the company,” the minister said on Channels TV’s Politics Today on Monday evening. “I’m not a signatory to any account. I’m not a director in the company.

“The company is a limited liability company, which is a private entity. So if the company is a private entity, of course, I am still a shareholder, and to the best of my knowledge public service rule does not prohibit public officers from being shareholders.

“What public service rule says is that you cannot be a director, of which I had resigned about five years ago.”

The decision by President Tinubu to suspend Edu, the Presidency said is in line with his avowed commitment to uphold the highest standards of integrity, transparency, and accountability in the management of the commonwealth of Nigerians.

President Tinubu on Sunday directed a comprehensive inquiry into the alleged N585m scandal in the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation headed by Edu.

He vowed to “decisively punish” those involved in any breaches and infractions unraveled during the investigation by agencies of government.

Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, announced the presidential directive in a statement on Sunday. (The Guardian)

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