For four years, the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development under the supervision of two ministers — Solomon Dalung and Sunday Dare — has refused to pay the sum of N100,000 for books it purchased from Tochukwu Okafor, a youth development enthusiast and author.

In 2017, 50 copies (N2,000 each) of Okafor’s ‘After NYSC’ were ordered by the Ministry of Youth Development, following a book presentation invitation by Christian Ohaa, the permanent Secretary at the time, to the author of seven books. The books were supplied and delivered to the ministry’s book store.

“Now, the problem is to collect the money from them,”Okafor told FIJ on Tuesday. “I would go to their account unit but they would say the money was not available, that when it comes, they would let me know. This has been on for four years.”

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After a year of non-payment despite seeing a document that showed that the money had been approved, Okafor began writing letters to the ministry’s permanent secretaries. He wrote Christian Ohaa in 2018, Olusade Adesola in 2019 and Gabriel Aduda in 2020. The current Permanent Secretary, Engr. Nebeolisa Anako, assumed office in January.

These permanent secretaries administered the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development since 2017. Under their watches, workers at the ministry disregarded instructions and withheld payment to Okafor, a situation the 39-year-old author described as “extremely frustrating and cruel”.

“In addition to writing letters, I would go there, wait from morning till 9:30 pm, they won’t answer me,” he said. “The money I have spent on N100 car parking ticket whenever I went to the ministry all these years to ‘beg’ them to pay my money is more than N10,000.

When the current Minister, Sunday Dare, assumed office in 2019, Okafor, optimistic that his money would be paid, still ended up disappointed. Although his request was transmitted to the Minister in an internal memo, nothing happened. Okafor told FIJ that one of the minister’s aides treated him harshly.

“The PA to the current minister was very rude to me… that it’s not the minister that is owing me, I should go and meet the permanent secretary,” he explained.

“When I go to the permanent secretary, they would say that the visiting day was Thursday. When I go on Thursdays, I will sit from morning till night and the permanent secretary will select the people he will see.”

In 2020, the Social Mobilisation Network, an office at the ministry, told Okafor that all that needed to be done for him to be paid had been done, but they could not explain why he had not been paid. Months later, he was told that his file was missing and he should write another letter.

“The file contains all the letters I have written and other documents supporting my request for payment. I refused to write the letter because it would be the fifth one I would write for N100,000.”

The Ministry for Youth and Sports Development was yet to respond to requests for comments as of the time of publishing this report.

 “I write because of my love for youth development and I don’t understand why they are treating me this way. I beg them in the name of God to pay my money. My business is crashing,” Okafor said.