These are not the best of times for the minister of humanitarian affairs and poverty alleviation, Betta Edu.
Days after she was indicted for approving the payment of N585.189 million grant meant for vulnerable groups in Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Ogun and Lagos States into a private account owned by one Bridget Mojisola Oniyelu, another scandal has surfaced.
Official documents have revealed that she approved funds for flight tickets and airport taxis for her team members to travel from Abuja to Kogi, a state with no airport, in November last year.
Documents seen by Daily Sun show that Edu approved N200,000 for flight tickets and N20,000 for airport taxi for each of her 13-man team to travel from Abuja to Kogi, while she approved N300,000 for herself, though no amount was approved for airport taxi for her.
This makes it a total of N3,160,000 for flight tickets and airport taxis to travel directly to a state without an airport.
The team spent N4,374,500 on flight tickets, airport taxis, daily transport allowance, and local running for the time spent in Kogi alone.
In contrast, in total, she approved the sum of N226,188,500 million for Kogi, Bayelsa, and Imo states through the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation ahead of the November 11, 2023 governorship elections, which includes funds disbursed to vulnerable people in the three states.
However, Kogi has no airport and the nearest airfield to it is in Akure, the Ondo State capital, a distance which would take over five hours to get to by road, much farther than the distance between Kogi and Abuja by road, which is about three hours.
Other airports around Kogi are in Owerri, Enugu, Asaba, and Delta State, but they are all farther from Akure than Lokoja.
