By Biodun Ojekunle

ON May 22, 2024, the Daily Trust Newspapers wrote that the Ministry of Culture voted 290 million naira only for street lights to be located in Minister Hanatu musa Musawa local government.

That “strategic project”, according to James sule, who is the permanent secretary of the ministry and chief accounting officer, did not tell us the cultural jobs, culture attractions and the” emerging innovations that project will contribute to gross Domestic productivity of the nation.

Mr James sule, who we must assume is a top civil servant and technocrat, reacted to the Daily Trust piece like a Nigerian street politician and possibly tried his hands on political sophistry by labouring hard to misinform the same public he was trying to inform.

Since the coming of Hannatu Musa Musawa, that culture ministry has been enmeshed in most scandalous, irritating, and pedestrian retorts and disclosures ever seen in this government. It was a daily and weekly bout of incompetence and confusion in the past eleven months or thereabout.

Apart from the unexplainable three billion naira budgeted for culture research and development in her 2024 budget, and we wonder for what, her ministry has been hit by pansa Pansa ( unassailable truth) from the media and informed stakeholders on daily basis.

Let me explain and credit fela kuti who crooned Pansa Pansa ( unending truth) in evidencial agreement to the power of truth, which must guide not just our relationship with each other but must also guide government policies, procedures and deliverables.

There’s no doubt that Pansa Pansa( truth) from the media and stakeholders has continued to expose and unsettle the minister Hannatu’s exaggerations, her claimed deliverables, misguided appointments, and poor understanding of her mandate

Before now, Hannatu Musa Musawa has used her appointees to falsely lay claim to culture projects done by the immediate past administration and now have resorted to deploy a tested technocrat like her permanent secretary to ” accuse” Daily Trust of ” alleged misinformation on the budgeted solar lights to be domiciled in the minister’s local government. It is worrisome.

If all our ministers, agency heads, and legislators now compete to domicile ” constituency projects” exclusively in their local governments, ” other areas in Nigeria that did not produce ministers will end up with nothing, no roads, lights, railway, hospitals, airports and etc. What a clever way to practice nepotism and misappropriation in the name of budgeting for constituency projects.

The trouble with the ministry of culture is not about reports by Daily Trust or the Pansa Pansa bearing media attention over what goes in that ministry but the very poor ministration of the affairs of our cultural diversity by Hannatu Musa Musawa.

Indeed, the efcc and icpc should ask Mr James sule when it became the mandate of the ministry of culture to build or construct solar lights. And for all the cultural enablers, the ministry thinks solar lights for the exclusive enjoyment of the minister local government are a priority! isn’t it sad. It is disturbing to note that all kinds of unbelievable and unexplainable” clever emerging innovations” are being fronted and bandied about as reasons to justify elephantine projects and others in that ministry.

When President Bola Ahmed Tinubu told visiting American Congress delegation recently that Nigeria is suffering from socioeconomic and political elephantiasis, the president possibly had the ministry of culture under Hannatu Musa Musawa in mind.

True, if I may use late fela kuti’s words, Mr John sule can not escape the Pansa Pansa interrogation of the ministry’s budget, which has no direct bearing to the renewed hope in culture and arts economy.

It will do Mr. permanent secretary, a world of good to stay away from joining the company of failed politicians whose lot is to deceive unassuming Nigerians. The permanent secretary should listen to his directors and be well guided. The spirit of Pansa Pansa ( irrefutable truth) will continue to hound that ministry until Hannatu Musa Musawa is sent packing from the ministry of culture and creative economy.