Nigerian leader suspends poverty alleviation minister after financial transactions are questioned

By CHINEDU ASADU
Associated Press

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Nigeria’s president has suspended the country’s minister of humanitarian affairs and poverty alleviation over the use of a private bank account for ministry financial transactions in the government’s social welfare program. The president’s office says Nigeria’s anti-corruption agency will investigate the entire framework of Nigeria’s social investment programs. President Bola Tinubu was elected last year after promising to rid Africa’s most populous country of chronic corruption and extreme poverty. In a country where the government’s austerity measures have further squeezed millions of people, many Nigerians have called for the minister to be fired.