Details of how Betta Edu was disgraced out of Aso Rock Villa have emerged.
Glamtush reports that when the suspended Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation Betta Edu got wind of her immediate suspension, she rushed down to the Aso Rock villa with her convoy and tried to see the President without a prior appointment on Monday afternoon.
She was, however, restricted to the President’s waiting room where she watched on TV as news channels announced her suspension.
When it became apparent, that she was not going to be allowed to see the President, Edu came outside but found out that her entire security details and vehicles that accompanied her convoy were gone. It was gathered that the security details received signals recalling them to their respective commands following her suspension.
The Villa Access Tag of the embattled Minister was also taken from her by the DSS. It took the intervention of one of the principal aides to the president, who volunteered to use his vehicle to give Dr. Betta Edu a ride out from the villa.
The 37-year-old was caught in a N585m disbursement scandal involving her ministry, attracting widespread criticisms from rights groups and activists.
Edu’s predicament was worsened when the Accountant General of the Federation, Oluwatoyin Madein, confirmed that although her office received a request from the humanitarian ministry to make certain payments, her office did not act on it.
In a statement on Monday afternoon, presidential spokesman, Ajuri Ngelale, said his principal suspended Edu with immediate effect and ordered the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ola Olukoyede, “to conduct a thorough investigation into all aspects of the financial transactions” involving the ministry and “one or more agencies thereunder”.
Incidentally, the EFCC is presently probing Edu’s predecessor, Sadiya Farouq, over the alleged laundering of N37.1 billion during her tenure as a minister under the administration of ex-President Muhammadu Buhari.
Edu, 37, the youngest in the President’s cabinet before her suspension, was a fast-rising Amazon in the political space having occupied state and national offices at a young age.
Before her ministerial appointment last August, she was Cross River State Commissioner for Health and the National Women Leader of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC). Edu was a prominent figure in the campaign train of Tinubu, the then APC presidential candidate, during the electioneering process that brought the ex-Lagos governor into office as President.
Edu clinched her ministerial appointment about three months after Tinubu was sworn in as President. Her tenure as minister was, however, shortlived barely six months after, perhaps the shortest tenure by a minister in a long while.
