The Federal Government’s effort to cushion the impact of economic and health crisis brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic through provision of palliatives may have been a far shot as just a tiny fraction of the citizenry benefitted from those relief measures, according to a recent survey conducted by Lagos-based research firm, SBM Intelligence.
The survey, which covered 18 Nigerian states across the six-geopolitical zones, revealed that only 1.2 percent of respondents received some form of support from the government while 98.8 percent of respondents claimed not to have received any form of support or palliatives.
“The 1.2 percent of respondents said that they received some form of support through one of the following channels: TraderMoni, MarketMoni, FarmerMoni, FGN-funded loans issued by the banking industry, food distribution from the local government collection points or through other proxies,” the report stated.
A large portion of the group that received government support indicated that the support received was insufficient, according to SBM, while noting that absence of a comprehensive national database is a setback for a broad-based distribution of palliatives.
“Without a unified database to go by, the distribution of palliatives was bound to be abysmal,” SBM said.
During the lockdown which ran for five weeks from March 31-May 4, 2020, the Federal Government rolled out palliative measures for targeted groups, in a bid to alleviate the effects of the COVID-induced lockdown.
The social investment programme, which entails food distribution, cash transfers, and loans repayment waivers, increased from 2.6 million households to 3.6 million households, according to government figures.
Sadiya Umar Farouq, Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, had said every Nigerian citizen enjoyed the COVID-19 relief stimulus and that the stimulus was evenly distributed across Nigeria.
“There is hardly anyone in Nigeria who didn’t receive the Federal Government palliatives care in this trial COVID-19 pandemic. All the tribes in Nigeria received the palliative, in fact it was evenly distributed,” Farouq had said.
However, findings from the survey contradict these claims. This is even as lamentations have trailed the distribution of government palliatives, with citizens alleging the process of distribution of the palliatives had been politicised.
A further analysis of the SBM survey showed that 100 percent of respondents from the North Central states (Nasarawa, Benue, and Abuja), 100 percent from North-East states (Adamawa and Yobe), 100 percent from South-East states (Abia, Enugu, Anambra) and 100 percent from South-South states (Edo, Rivers and Cross River) noted that they had not received any form of support from the government.
“97.6 percent of respondents from North West states: Zamfara, Sokoto, Kano, Kebbi and Katsina, said they did not receive any form of support from the government, while 2.4 percent said they had received or knew someone who received support,” the report said.
“For South-West states, Ogun and Lagos, 95.3 percent of respondents said they had not received any form of support and 4.7 percent said they received food items and financial support,” it said.
