News - North Central - FCT
Updated: April 15, 2021

Did Pantami Disgrace Farouq Such That She Wept At FEC Meeting? Humanitarian Affairs Ministry Reacts [THROWBACK]

By Ridwan Yusuf
April 15, 2021
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It's Thursday and AllNews travels back in time to November 2020 when the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development said that news that its supervising minister, Sadiya Farouq wept as Communications Minister, Isa Ali Pantami, ‘disgraced' her at a Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting at the time is "fake".

According to Sahara Reporters (SR), Farouq was involved in a heated argument with her Communications and Digital Economy colleague, Pantami, during the weekly FEC meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Trouble was said to have started after Pantami presented his ministry's planned activities for approval, which included the mapping and registration of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) across Nigeria.

Immediately after the Communications Minister’s submission, a furious Farouq raised her hand to speak and expressed objection to the approval for such activities pending review and approval from her ministry.

SR said that President Muhammadu Buhari was inclined to agree with Sadiya, considering the supervisory role of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs on IDPs, but Pantami strongly objected to the opposition of Farouq, reminding her of the statutory power and role of the National Identity Management Commision (NIMC) in capturing and registering citizens, IDP or not.

The Communications Minister broke the camels back when he flaunted a letter written by his ministry to Farouq’s office on October 15, 2020 with no response a month after, SR said.

It was at this point that the President went ahead and approved the memo from Pantami, granting the go-ahead from NIMC to capture the IDPs, the news report claimed.

A source, according to SR, said the minister openly wept immediately after the meeting, accusing Pantami of disgracing her before President Buhari and other colleagues.

“Farouq is very afraid. She has this fear that the capturing is capable of exposing the corruption usually perpetrated in the name of IDPs,” the source said.

But reacting to that news report via its verified Twitter handle, the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs said the story is not true.