A year after about 200 tonnes of date donated by Saudi Arabia to poor Nigerians were diverted to the open market, the Nigerian government is yet to identify the culprits.
The dates were donated by Saudi Arabia for last year’s Ramadan fast for free distribution to persons displaced by Boko Haram as well as mosques where they could have been assessed freely by fasting Muslims.
Dates are Islamically the first things Muslims are expected to eat when they break the Ramadan fast daily.
After the donation and arrival of the dates, it was discovered that they were not distributed as instructed, but were instead sold on the streets for profit in some parts of Abuja and Borno State.
The Nigerian government admitted the situation, published an apology to Saudi Arabia and pledged to investigate the perpetrators of the scandal.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which apologised on behalf of the government, pledged to investigate the incident.
The Minister of State Foreign Affairs, Khadijat Abba-Ibrahim, in the statement apologised for the “unfortunate turn of events”.
“This is not the spirit in which the 200 tonnes of dates was given,” she said.
The 200 tonnes is equivalent to about 200,000 kilogrammes of dates or about 4,000 units of 50kg bags filled with dates. The market value, based on PREMIUM TIMES findings is about N20 million.
When PREMIUM TIMES reached out to the foreign affairs ministry on the status of its investigations, it avoided enquiries on it.
The ministry’s spokesperson, Tope Elias-Fatile, did not respond to several phone calls and text messages sent.
The Saudi Arabian government, through its embassy in Nigeria, declined to comment on whether or not it was concerned that nobody has been punished for the crime.
When the Nigerian foreign ministry confirmed the diversion of the dates, it announced that they were to be distributed by the Nigerian Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons.
However, when PREMIUM TIMES reached out to the refugees’ commission on the status of the dates and the investigation, its spokesperson, Alimat Musa, said, “The supervising ministry is in the best position to give an update.”
“If the Foreign Affairs (ministry) issued a statement to that effect, that they are going to conduct an investigation, they should be the one to give the information.”
Also, the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, which could have also aided in getting the dates to the internally displaced persons, said it was not involved in the distribution.
“As far as NEMA is concerned, we don’t know anything like that,” the agency’s spokesperson, Sani Datti, told PREMIUM TIMES.
With a year gone, and new Ramadan almost mid-way, anti-corruption advocates and Muslim groups frown at the government’s inaction.
“It is a major smear to the integrity of Nigeria as a country,” Lanre Suraj of the Civil Society Network Against Corruption said.
“It deprives other people that would need support of other international organisation and countries in future. Actually, the fight against corruption and corrupt practices are not actually limited between the Naira and Kobo, it is the abuse of office.”
Mr Suraj insisted that “the federal government must not only prosecute but investigate the outcome of the distribution and make the investigation, prosecution and sanction public of those who are connected.”
He questioned the commitment of the government to identify and punish the culprits.
“I don’t think it is a very difficult task to embark and achieve,” he said. ”if some of those dates were sold on the street of Abuja and Borno, then it is not only easy to arrest those who are selling it, but extract information from them.”
For Kaamil Kalejaiye of the Muslim Students Society of Nigeria (MSSN), “We should ask the government what they have found out on the case. As they have promised, the government should come out and tell us what they have done.”
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