The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr. Betta Edu, has taken a firm stance against a website falsely claiming to be an official federal government trust fund portal.

This deceptive website has been collecting personal data from unsuspecting Nigerians.

In an official statement released on Tuesday by the minister’s spokesperson, Rasheed Olanrewaju, Edu unequivocally distanced herself from the fraudulent website and clarified that it was not created by her ministry or any other federal agency. She classified it as the work of unscrupulous fraudsters.

The statement reads in part, “The honourable minister for humanitarian affairs and poverty alleviation, Dr. Betta Edu, wishes to inform the general public that a circulating portal ‘FG Humanitarian and Poverty Alleviation Trust Fund Portal’ did not emanate from the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation. The said portal is fake, created by undesirable elements with the sole intention of defrauding unsuspecting members of the public.”

In September, the federal government introduced a trust fund aimed at poverty alleviation for citizens.

The minister went on to explain that 30 percent of the funding for the trust fund is to be provided by the federal government, while the remaining 70 percent is expected to come from donor agencies.