Minister says Edo governor re-bagging FG's palliative rice in his name

Abubakar Momoh, the minister of Niger Delta Development has accused the Edo state governor Godwin Obaseki of re-bagging the 20 trucks of rice distributed by the federal government to states in his name.

The palliative which is expected to cushion the effects of the unabated cost of living crisis in the country are yet to be received by some governors like Edo, Gombe, Taraba amongst others.

Momoh who featured as a guest on Channels Television on Wednesday said all states have received the reliefs, stressing that the efforts of the President Bola Tinubu administration to end hunger in the country are being frustrated by some governors.

The minister claimed that Obaseki is part of those engineering the process where reliefs of the federal government meant for the vulnerable are re-bagged in his name.

“In the case of Edo state, you see in the social media and television how people broke into warehouses and brought out the goods. The state governor got his own.

“What he does is when the federal government brings reliefs like this, he rebags them in his name. We saw what happened during the Covid and that’s what is happening today,” Momoh said.

He said the governor is used to giving the impression that bad governance is “at the doorstep of the federal government whereas the resources of this country are being shared among the three tiers of government”.

The federal government in July dispatched a total 740 trucks of rice to all the 36 states in the country in a move to douse the food crisis and ease the pains of Nigerians.

“After exhaustive deliberations, the Minister of Agriculture had earlier been directed to ensure that food is being made available to Nigerians, and the understanding is that about 20 trucks of rice have already been supplied to each of the states of the federation, including the Federal Capital Territory.

“Each truck carries about 1,200 bags of 25kg of rice,” Mohammed Idris, minister of Information and National Orientation said at the end of a Federal Executive Council meeting.

Nigeria is currently facing a severe food shortage crisis which has sent prices up, increased hunger and thrown many into poverty.

The nation’s food inflation is at a record 40.87 percent with about 65 percent of disposable income spent on food.

This situation has led to a social unrest where thousands of people took to the streets to demand an end to the cost-of-living crisis which is depleting citizens’ savings and crunching their spending power.

The president has however appealed to the demonstrators to be patient while he fixes the myriads of economic challenges confronting the continent’s biggest economy.