Former Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Solomon Dalung, has challenged President Bola Tinubu’s administration to address allegations that some ministers paid billions of naira to secure their appointments and subsequently sought to recover the money from public resources.
Dalung raised the questions in a strongly worded commentary following claims by Alwan Hassan, a spokesperson for the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council, that some ministers allegedly paid huge sums to secure their positions.
Hassan made the remarks during an interview on Arise News on Thursday, October 22, while defending Tinubu’s approach to managing government expenditure and budget implementation.
“A lot of ministers pay billions and billions, and, you know, to get themselves appointed. The first thing they think of is how to recoup that money,” Hassan said.
He subsequently argued that the alleged practice was not peculiar to the APC, describing it as a longstanding problem in Nigeria’s political system. However, he did not identify any minister or provide evidence of specific payments.
Reacting to the allegation, Dalung questioned whether ministerial appointments had become investments through which political appointees expected to recover their money after assuming public office.
“Is ministerial appointment now a business investment, with the Nigerian treasury expected to bear the cost of recovering the capital?” he asked.
Dalung said the allegation raised serious questions about the integrity of public appointments, accountability and the management of government resources.
He also questioned Hassan’s claim that Tinubu had withheld funds from ministries to prevent ministers from recovering their alleged investments.
According to Dalung, the allegations should not be dismissed as political gossip but subjected to scrutiny by the relevant authorities.
He challenged Hassan to clarify his claims if they were false and urged the Presidency and anti-corruption agencies to investigate if they were true.
“If true, the presidency and the relevant anti-corruption agencies must investigate who paid, who collected and whether public resources were abused,” Dalung said.
The former minister argued that public office should be treated as a responsibility to serve citizens rather than an opportunity to recoup money allegedly spent securing political appointments.
His intervention adds to growing questions surrounding Hassan’s remarks, which have placed the process of ministerial appointments and the funding of government ministries under renewed public scrutiny.
Neither Hassan’s televised allegation nor Dalung’s reaction establishes that any minister paid money to secure an appointment. No specific minister or recipient of the alleged payments was identified in the remarks cited.
The Presidency, the APC campaign council and the ministers concerned had not provided responses in the material available for this report.
The allegations remain unsubstantiated and would require credible evidence and independent investigation to establish whether any wrongdoing occurred.
