The Federal Government’s recent N180 billion and truckloads of food items in the name of palliatives sent to states and the Federal Capital Territory is a classic example of how not to solve a problem. In fact, it is so distasteful. Recall the case of the $800 million loan deal inherited from the Muhammadu Buhari government by the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration, which was meant to be distributed among 12 million households at N8,000 per home.
And because of the hoopla generated by the proposal, the Tinubu administration called for the review of the utilisation and probably distribution of the fund and it was thought that the new government had learnt a lesson.
That was the assumption until the recent N180 billion palliative the Federal Government distributed among the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory. In the package, each state was allocated N5 billion and truckloads of rice, maize and other food items.
The distribution of the fund and especially the food component did not make any difference from the reviewed $800m loan deal. The distribution of the palliative did not appear to be well thought out.
And to quote the spokesperson for the Arewa Consultative Front, Professor Tukur Muhammed-Baba, the N5 billion in palliatives and grant to each state government is shambolic and unscientific. According to the Professor of Sociology, there is no basis for giving the same amount to Lagos, Oyo, Kano and Bayelsa States as their populations and statistics of eligible people differ.
Muhammed-Buba said: “I am not happy about such blanket distribution of N5 billion to each state. In the first place, there is no basis for the distribution. I mean, if you are looking for poor people, are you allocating the same amount to Bayelsa, Lagos, Oyo, and Kano states, and you expect it to make an impact? This shows that we are doing things like what grammar people call ‘hunter’s pack’. You don’t plan, you don’t strategize, you just came out and made an announcement on that. There is no basis for sharing money to states on an equal basis. We are talking of poor people and poor people is a question of proportion, we know there are over 140 million poor people in Nigeria. The number of people suffering from poverty in Lagos, Oyo, and Kano will not be the same with those living in poverty in Bayelsa, Taraba, or Jigawa. So, what is the basis? What impact is it going to make? You are accompanying it with 30,000 bags of rice. How many people is that going to reach? Take a state like Sokoto, for example. They have over seven million people by the latest National Population Commission estimate. So, how many people are 30,000 bags of rice going to feed?”
Muhammed-Buba noted that the government is not working on a definite plan, saying: “The government is implementing a shambolic policy, you need to come to the aid of the poor people, there is no doubt about it, that is scientific, but you need to do it in such a way that your intervention will not be a drop in the ocean.”
According to reports, confusion is trailing the Federal Government’s palliatives package to the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory stemming from distribution hitches, alleged underhand dealings and inadequacy of the materials to meet the needs of Nigerians.
In fact, the government has created another higher level of poverty in its plan-less attempt to solve a problem. Don’t forget that the government of Nigeria as at today does not own any farm or food storage anywhere. The trucks of rice, maize and other grains they are distributing all over the place are mopped up in the various markets nationwide, thus jerking up prices of food commodities.
Any wonder that a bag of rice now goes for N50,000? The poor Nigerian now has to go to the same market to compete with rapacious government officials mopping up all the food items available in the name of palliatives.
If Tinubu’s government believes it has spent over N180 billion on palliatives for the populace, it should try and watch what happened to all what they have expended billions on in a video of palliative distribution in a district in Kwara State.
The viral video reminds one of the story of how a rich man’s good intention of feeding the populace ended up in waste due to poor planning.
In a trending video on social media, some residents of Adewole Ward in Ilorin West Local Government Area of Kwara State were seen walking away from the venue of the distribution of foodstuffs in Agunbelewo area. The residents said the entire Agunbelewo was allocated six measures of rice, which is about one and a half paint plastic containers out of the eight bags allocated to Adewole Ward, where the state Governor, AbdulRaman AbdulRazaq, hails from.
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One Mallam Yinusa Magaji, who identified himself as a leader in the area, said all the residents of the Agunbelewo area were given six measures of rice to share. Magaji said: “We received six measures of rice out of one bag allocated to three areas of Agunbelewo, Gaa Odota and Adewole Housing Estate in the Adewole Ward. We want the government to challenge us if they gave us more than six measures contained in this bag.”
Before he ended his speech, the crowd that gathered in the place had reduced, as many were said to have left in anger.
And from reports from all over the place, distribution of the palliatives has been fraught with so many problems simply because of the peculiar nature of the country where there is no dependable data for either food or money distribution. If the over N150 billion spent on palliatives that barely reached the target population was spent on, for example, acquiring farm implements like tractors and distributed to the various states, the impact on food production would be unquantifiable. The simple thing Tinubu should have done was to appeal to Nigerians to give him some time like a year for them to have abundance of food. Now, it is on record that Tinubu has spent some N150 billion on food palliative, an intervention programme that went to waste. An example of penny-wise and pound-foolish.
Government should not feign ignorance that there is no means of distributing money or other items among the Nigerian population because it is aware that there is no correct data to guide such an exercise. No wonder Organised Labour dismissed the palliative sent to the states, stating that the governors cannot be trusted with such an important exercise. The Nigeria Labour Congress and Trade Union Congress insisted that the governors could not be trusted, noting that politicians and not the poor would benefit from the N5 billion largesse given to each state government for disbursement to the citizens.
Joe Ajaero, the President of the NLC, said: “N5 billion multiplied by 36 states is going to give you N180 billion. So if you divide that with the official figures from the National Bureau of Statistics, which says that 133 million Nigerians are multi-dimensionally poor, and calculate it, you will get about N2,000 each for those who are poor. “That is the official statistics of the government, but you and I know that the actual figure is more than that. So is that what to celebrate? And then, five trucks or there about, of rice to a state. The poor people of these states cannot get one cup of rice. It will not go round. Even if you pick them from the poverty bracket, it will be difficult for them to get one cup of rice. Is that the best we can do? Is that the best approach to governance? So do we look at our people as people we should give one cup of rice and N2,000? Is that palliative?”
Ajaero said the government should be serious with governance that serves the interest of the people. And that is where we also stand. Such tokenism is not what Nigerians expect of the Tinubu administration. We believe the government can do far better than this with the thinking cap of officials on and a listening hear to what Nigerians are saying.
