Uju Kennedy Ohanenye, a former Minister of Women Affairs, has disclosed that she returned about N280 million individuals donated to the Ministry of Women Affairs after President Bola Tinubu sacked her.
On October 23, Tinubu sacked Ohanenye and four other ministers, saying it was an action meant to reinvigorate the government’s capacity for efficiency.
United Bank for Africa Group Chairman Tony Elumelu and Atlas Oranto Petroleum’s Chief Executive Officer Arthur Eze were prominent figures who donated some of the money to the ministry on October 15 to implement some humanitarian programmes.
She however said she did not utilise the funds when the president terminated her appointment.
Rather than leave the funds in the ministry for her successor to continue those programmes, Ohanenye ordered the ministry’s bankers to return the money to their sources.
She discussed some of the support and the challenges the ministry recorded under her watch on Wednesday on Channels Television’s Politics Today.
“The programmes I initiated in the ministry, like the mobile courts, going to rescue these small girls of five to 12 years old who are hawking on the street, rescue them, take them back to school; I did not have money for that because it was not part of what they [ministry] budgeted for,” the former minister said.
“So, when I called on Nigerians, I was so surprised on October 15, a lot of them, including Chief Arthur Eze, they all gathered at the villa [Presidential Villa] and they donated money to this effect. They were very happy to support it.
“Even Tony Elumelu and others, they donated a lot of money. Unfortunately, not up to two weeks after the donation, as we were trying to take off, starting from decongesting the courts and the prisons and going to the streets, I was sacked.
“When that happened, remember that they donated that money to help these poor people, the vulnerable, as a minister, there was no way I could have continued using that money. I did not even use it at all. So, what happened was, I asked the secretary who was in charge to write to the bank to do a reversal of the funds.
“So, everybody who donated money to; Arthur Eze gave me N100 million, so many other people [donated] N30 million, N20 million. All their monies were paid back to them. I did not touch a penny; I did not use any because I was to use it in my capacity as a minister. As far as I was not a minister anymore, the best thing was to return their money.”
She also said that she spent her funds to execute some of the ministry’s projects and those funds were still stuck in the ministry.
However, Imaan Suleiman-Ibrahim, her successor in the ministry, had started paying back the money to her.
“I had challenges, but I was managing myself to be able to do it. And I was putting in a lot of my money. As I speak to you, a lot of my money is stuck there. But my sister there is trying her best and gradually paying me back; the ministry is gradually paying me back,” Ohanenye said.
“I used my money because, without that, I would not have been able to achieve anything. That opportunity given to me was not a simple thing to get easily like that. So, when I got it, I thanked God that I was given that chance to showcase who I am and touch a few lives I was able to touch.
“If I had not put in my money, like the Keke [Napep] I told you, it was my money I bought the Keke with, it doesn’t belong to the ministry.”
On why she was deploying her personal funds to run the ministry that was supposed to be run and funded with public funds, Ohanenye said many of the initiatives she believed could achieve real-life impact on the people were not provided for in the ministry’s budget.
“Not only that was it underfunded, like the last budget, what they like to put there are just programmes. And I did not like that because the programmes were not making any impact. I was looking at it as wastage,” she said.
“So, the programmes I thought could make an impact on the people, they will tell you it was not in the budget.
“Like the mobile court, they will tell you it was not there. The mobile court would have helped to protect the rights of these little children and women [suffering from] GBV [gender-based violence]. It was something very important but there was no money for it.”
Ohanenye was under suspicion of fraud and public fund mismanagement while she was in office.
FIJ reported how the ministry paid N11,316,800 to Ohanenye’s personal account in 2023 to attend COP28 held in Dubai. This payment violated the Financial Regulations of 2009.
Read also:
‘I’m Not a Witch, Was Handling Sensitive Cases’ – Ex-Minister Kennedy-Ohanenye (video)
Kennedy-Ohanenye Reveals Why She Refunded N280 Million Cash Donations after Her Sack (video)