Economic crunch: More Nigerians still vulnerable despite palliatives

…Hunger bites after govt largesse

…Initiative counterproductive

…Good policy faulty implemented

Despite promising several palliatives to Nigerians to cushion the impact of the cost-of-living crisis following the removal of petroleum subsidies, many more people have been thrown into poverty and are still very vulnerable.

The removal of the petrol subsidy by President Bola Tinubu during his inaugural speech on May 29, 2023, no doubt, increased the pump prices of petrol from N195/litre to N637/litre today depending on the dealer and state. It subsequently resulted in high cost of transportation, increased economic hardship and high inflation as well as uncontrollable food prices.

Read also: Economic Hardship: To avoid begging, Nigerians find alternative ways to survive

To cushion the effect of subsidy removal on people and businesses, President Tinubu promised to give Nigerians about 10 kinds of palliatives including the sharing of N8,000 to 12 million households, which was suspended after criticism from Nigerians, and distribution of food items to poor Nigerians.

For instance, the Federal Government approved N5 billion for each state and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to procure food items and distribute them to the poor in the states.

According to Babagana Zulum, governor of Borno State, the National Economic Council (NEC) approved the palliative to cushion the effect of the hike in the cost of food items, and petroleum owing to the removal of subsidy.

Zulum said the Federal Government also released five trucks of rice each to the 36 state governors and that the state governors are to procure 100,000 bags of rice; 40,000 bags of maize, and fertilizers.

He pointed out that 52 percent of the funds were given to the state governments as grants while 48 percent as loans.

By making funds available to the states, the state governments went ahead to distribute food items to some senior citizens in their states including the aged and retirees.

“We were given one bag of rice, one bag of beans and one bag of garri for a Community Development Association (CDA) that comprises five streets and thousands of families. In my street alone, out of the hundreds of people that we applied for, only three persons benefited,” Anthony Amaechi, chairman of one of the resident associations in the Idimu area of Lagos State, told BusinessDay Sunday.

According to him, the food items that were in bags that were handed over to the beneficiaries could barely feed the people involved for one full week.

“The three elderly persons that benefited from the palliative only got four dericas of rice, four dericas of beans and four dericas of garri.

“There is hardship in this country and many families are finding it difficult to put food on their tables due to the surging inflation and prices of food. This only confirmed the fact that the palliative did not change anything for the people because Nigerians are now more vulnerable than ever. If you ask me, this palliative thing is meaningless,” he said.

He also said that he pitied families today because a paint bucket of garri that went for N1500 a few days ago now goes for N2,000 and N2200 in some places and so do the prices of other foodstuff in the market.

Recent statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said that Nigeria’s annual inflation rate rose to 28.92 percent in December 2023 from 28.20 percent in November.

This means that the December 2023 headline inflation rate increased by 0.72 percent compared to the November 2023 headline inflation rate while on a year-on-year basis, the headline inflation rate stood at 7.58 percent compared to the rate recorded in December 2022, which was 21.34 per cent.

NBS stated that the food inflation rate in December 2023 grew to 33.93 percent on a year-on-year basis, which was 10.18 percent more than the 23.75 percent recorded in December 2022.

Food inflation has remained on the rise despite President Tinubu’s State of Emergency on food insecurity, declared to tackle the increase in food prices in Nigeria.

Tinubu promised to invest about N200 billion to support the cultivation of 500,000 hectares of farmland and all-year-round farming practices in Nigeria.

This move is yet to have any positive impact on the lives of Nigerians as prices of foodstuff are fast going out of the reach of the poor.

“What is happening in Nigeria is unbelievable. Food prices are going up every week and I wondered how low-income earners are surviving today going by how expensive foodstuffs are in the market. A bucket of garri has moved from N1,500 to N2,000; a bucket of rice is over N6500; a derica of beans is now N800 and a crate of egg goes for N3,200,” Funmi Asake, a Lagos-based businesswoman, said.

She further said that the so-called palliative had no impact as far as she is concerned because it only reached some selected few leaving out some many others.

“I am not interested in any food item from the government because the small garri that my friend’s mother received during the sharing of the so-called palliative was already spoilt before it reached the poor woman. The government should be intentional about bringing down the cost of transportation especially in commercial cities like Lagos where residents spend a substantial amount of their income on transportation fare every month,” Asake said.

She noted that the cost of transportation has serious implications on the cost of commodities including foodstuffs in the market as farmers also factor in the cost of transporting the goods from the farm to market into the final price of the goods.

Promise Ufot, a pensioner and beneficiary of the palliative, said the food items given to her did not sustain her for a week, and she added that the initiative is counterproductive because it did not change her economic situation.

According to her, going by the experience of other social interventions of past government, palliative and other social interventions of government always benefit government officials in charge of implementing the initiative rather than the people whom it is meant for.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Federal Government announced COVID-19 palliatives that created a lot of scandal after the supposed food items that were meant to be given to people were looted by politicians who influenced the people to benefit.

Another example was the Subsidy Reinvestment Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) under former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration where in January 2018, a former Permanent Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Labour and Productivity, Clement Onubuogo, forfeited N664 million and $137,680 to the Federal Government, having been prosecuted for diversion of funds from the SURE-P programme.

This was after the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) arrested him.

In the same year, the former governor of Katsina state, Ibrahim Shema, was accused of laundering N5.77 billion SURE-P funds. He was prosecuted before a justice, Hadiza Rabiu Shagari, on a 26-count conspiracy and money laundering charge.

In May 2022, the EFCC arrested the former governor of Zamfara State, Abdulaziz Yari, over alleged financial fraud of about N22 billion linking the politician to the SURE-P programme.

On his part, Joshua Shoremeku, an executive of one of the CDAs in the Alimosho area of Lagos, told our correspondent, that politicians use palliative initiatives to feather their own nest rather than cater for the poor masses that it is supposed to be for.

“This palliative thing is a scam, which is why we have several scandals surrounding such initiatives implemented by other administrations in the past. During COVID-19 our CDA was given a small bag of rice, small beans and sachet of tomato paste that we didn’t know whether to share or cook for people to eat.

“This was why we the executives had to go around to the residents to raise money, which we used to buy more rice, beans, tomato paste, and noodles and it helped us to buy more food, which we distributed to 24 families,” Shoremeku said.