TheCable

Bunmi Tunji-Ojo, minister of interior, was on Tuesday spotted at the presidential villa in Abuja.

Tunji-Ojo met with President Bola Tinubu at a closed session.

TheCable could not immediately confirm the mission of the minister at the State House.

But sources within the presidency said the visit was in connection with the recent controversy in the award of contracts at the federal ministry of humanitarian affairs.

After meeting with the president, the minister declined to speak with journalists.

“He came to see the president on other issues but there’s no way such issue wouldn’t have come up,” a source told TheCable.

Recently, a leaked document showed that New Planet Project Limited, a company formed by Tunji-Ojo, got a N438 million consultancy contract from the ministry of humanitarian affairs and poverty alleviation.

Owing to the development, the interior minister’s name was mentioned in the controversy rocking the humanitarian ministry.

On Monday, the minister said he had resigned from the company in February 2019 when he was elected as a lawmaker in the house of representatives.

The minister said he is no longer one of the directors of the company and that he is still one of the shareholders.

The company was registered on March 3, 2009 at the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) – 10 years before he was first elected as a house of representatives member.

Due to the alleged corruption scandal rocking the humanitarian ministry, Betta Edu, the minister, had been suspended by Tinubu.

Edu came under scrutiny after a cache of documents was leaked wherein she made an “illegal request” to transfer N585 million to a private bank account and approved flight fares for her ministry staff to Kogi state which has no airport.

The suspended minister has been invited by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for questioning.