Women Affairs Minister may be summoned by National Assembly over $200 million deal

There are strong Indications that the Minister of Women Affairs, Mrs. Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye, may be summoned by the House of Representatives, upon resumption of prelary next week to defend allegations of fraud, abuse of office and arbitrariness in the management of the ministry.

This is a sequel to the petition written to the Green Chamber of the National Assembly, by a law firm, St. Gilos Solicitors, acting on behalf of its clients, Mela Chiyoma Pat Limited and its Managing Director, Mrs. Patricia Stan-Dioka.

The petition, detailing a catalogue of alleged corrupt practices and abuse of office was addressed to the Chairman, House Commitee on Women Affairs. The petition was dated September 17th, 2024.

It was titled, "Complaint Against the Honourable Minister of Women Affairs Over Corrupt Practices, Abuse of Office and Economic Sabotage, Denying the Nigerian Government the Benefits of over $200Billion Credit Line and Incentives for Rural Women Through the Ministry of Women Affairs."

In the petition made available to journalists at the weekend, Stan-Dioka, stated that she was introduced to Kennedy-Ohanenye in May, 2024, adding that she subsequently introduced a programme titled, "Women For Food Security", an initiative to empower the poor Nigerian women and enhance food security, in line with President Tinubu's agenda of ensuring food security for Nigerians, to her.

According to Stan-Dioka, Kennedy-Ohanenye accepted the proposal and machineries were put in place for its success, with her and her company appointed as Partners/Agents of the ministry for the programme.

The petition stated partly, " Further agreement was reached by the parties to set up a joint project account between out client and the ministry."

"However, preparations for the event ostensibly went smoothly until when the Honourable Minister started requesting that monies for the programme be paid into her personal account or, in the alternative, into her son's account which details she provided. Our client was further directed by the Honourable Minister to ask for donor funds and pay same into private accounts."

"Our client kicked against the payment of the programme monies into personal account(s), and rather insisted that the monies should be paid into the account of the Ministry of Women Affairs or into a nominated joint account, to the fury of the Honourable Minister, who promised to deal with her for rejecting her directive/demand."

"In actualisation of her threat to our client, the Honourable Minister resorted to brazen abuse of office, arbitrariness and a public dramatic display of power on 8th August, 2024, when she walked into the venue of an ongoing programme to disrupt and shutdown the event, falsely alleging that our clients were impostors and organised the programme without the knowledge and or consent of her ministry."

"The media was awash with the details and coverage of this unprecedented international shame caused the nation by the Honourable Minister of Women Affairs because of obvious personal interests."

"In addition to the consequent opprobrium, international shame and embarrassment brought to the nation, the aforesaid action of the Honourable Minister also greatly sabotaged the economic interest of the Federal Government of Nigeria and the Nigerian populace, more particularly the rural women and farmers targeted to primarily benefit from the programme."

"We should bear in mind the calibre of persons in the programme, including the Deputy Prime Minister of Uganda, who came for the the programme but was pinned down in her hotel room through a diplomatic mail."

"It's our further instruction that, but for the alleged greed and selfishness of the Minister of Women Affairs, the investment from this private initiative of our client which she frustrated, would not only have impacted positively on the Agricultural Production of the country, it would also have increased the general business of agriculture and agro-related and allied businesses that would have improved Nigeria's GDP."

The petitioners added, " The minister's dishonourable conduct has also denied the nation the opportunity of industrialisation, development of skills of our farmers, retention of value additions and consequent import substitution. The teeming unemployed women and youths were also denied great opportunities because of selfish and inglorious quest for money by a public officer, who should have the interest of the country in mind at all times. This is a great loss to Nigeria."

"There are indeed so much to be disclosed about the illicit conduct of the Honourable Minister of Women Affairs in respect of the Women For Food Security's programme initiated by our client, but all that is obvious are corruption, abuse of office and economic sabotage, which should attract your attention, particularly as she claimed to be above the law."

"Please be assured of our highest regards, as we repose tremendous confidence in the House of Representatives of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in investigation of cases of this nature," the petition concluded.

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