I Don't Need N2bn at this Stage of My Life - Audu Ogbeh Addresses Alleged Bribery Scam

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development has expressed shock over the allegation carried by an online medium which stated that he cornered N2 billion from the N20 billion paid to agro dealers.


While briefing newsmen in Abuja on Thursday, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh has debunked allegation that he and some officials of the ministry cornered N2 billion from the N20 billion paid to agro dealers who participated in the 2014 Growth Enhancement Support Programme (GES).

The minister who expressed shock over the allegation carried by an online news medium, stressed that he does not need N2 billion at this stage of his life, and maintained that the money was handled by the Ministry of Finance and disbursed to the agro dealers by the Accountant General of the Federation.

Noting that the allegation claimed that, “the ministry paid N13bn out of the N20bn released for the agro dealers, and that he, the Minister of State and Permanent Secretary shared N2bn,” he expressed worry at the culture of irresponsibility and blatant criminality carried out in the social media.

His words, “I don’t need N2 billion at this stage of my life, I will not take public funds, I’m not here because I’m looking for a job, I said it before the Senate. This criminality in the name of social media that people will hide under the platform, they won’t revealed their names. If you have concrete evidence that somebody has done wrong say so and be prepared to go to court and go to the police to report.”

The minister however pointed out that the debt of N37 billion was inherited from the previous administration, and because of the complaints by agro dealers of not operating because they did not have money to carry on with their business, “the Federal Government was gracious enough to pay N20 billion of a total of N67 billion out of which N37 billion belonged to the agro dealers.


He said: “This was a debt which we inherited from the previous administration. The total debt was N37 billion and when we arrived, agro-dealers said they could not operate because they did not have enough money to carry on their business.


“And so we applied to government and pleaded with them to see what they could do to give us some money to pay this debt. They gave us N20 billion to pay the debt profile we had on ground then of a total of N67 billion out of which N37 billion belonged to the agro-dealers and fertilizer suppliers.

“When the money got to the ministry of finance, we met with the ministry of finance and they decided that they will handle the payment so they handled the payment. The money never got to this ministry. I want you to note that point and we were happy that they decided to do so because it took the burden of trying to manage this kind of money off us.

According to him: “Now we had met with the agro-dealers and said to them that we will….the payment. The minister of finance on the other hand said look, the big producers, the manufacturers of fertilizer, the big blenders were owed such a high profile that many of them had given notice that they will close down and it is they who make the production before many of the agro-dealers buy off them to supply.

“So they decided to pay off the big dealers so that they can continue in business and pay the agro dealers a portion of their money pending when more come for them to get their balance. The next thing we saw three days ago on the internet is that we have taken N2 billion out of them money. How do you take money that is not even under your control?


“The money was in the hands of the ministry of finance. The office of the Accountant General of the Federation did the payment and then somebody write some stuff of how the Buhari anti-corruption fight is a charade.

"How his ministers, myself and my Deputy and the Permanent Secretary have stolen N2 billion from a fund which we never saw?”

He further contended that the ministry never handled the money, adding that the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF) made payments to the agro-dealers not the ministry as alleged by the online medium.