The EFCC declared former Humanitarian Affairs Minister Sadiya Farouq wanted on Saturday. She administered Nigeria's social protection programmes. She's now accused of diverting the funds they ran on.

Sadiya Umar Farouq served as Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development under President Buhari from 2019 to 2023. She was 38 when she was appointed. The youngest minister in that cabinet. Her ministry ran the Conditional Cash Transfer programme, the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme, and the National Social Safety Net operation. These were the federal government's main delivery systems for reaching Nigerians at the bottom of the income ladder.

The EFCC posted a wanted notice on its website on Saturday. The charge is 21 counts of criminal breach of trust, abuse of office, and diversion of public funds. The specific allegation at the centre of the case involves $1.3 million. A company called Visual ICT Limited was overpaid for work on the Rapid Response Register. That was the database used to identify and validate beneficiaries of the social safety net. The money was supposed to come back to the ministry. The EFCC says it was diverted instead. Along with N746.6 million in other public funds. Former Permanent Secretary Bashir Nura Alkali is also named in the charge.

A Federal Capital Territory High Court issued the arrest warrant on April 16 after both defendants failed to appear for their scheduled arraignment. Farouq's lawyer said he had applied for an extension of time. The EFCC went public with the wanted notice on Saturday anyway.

This means the person responsible for determining who was poor enough to receive government support is now being investigated for diverting the money that was supposed to reach them. Nigeria's social protection programmes have always been underfunded relative to the need. In 2022, the Conditional Cash Transfer programme reached roughly 1.7 million households in a country where more than 80 million people live in extreme poverty. The gap between who the programme was meant to reach and who it actually reached was already enormous before any money was diverted.

Both things are true. The programmes were already thin. And the money that existed for them is now in question.