The presidency has blamed logistic delays for a N57.8 billion food package it is yet to account for.
Olusegun Dada, President Bola Tinubu’s special assistant on social media, said the president shared rice and food palliatives to Nigerians through governors and federal legislators. After questions were raised about the silence of senators and representatives over billions in palliative, Olusegun claimed there was a delay.
“The President, through the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, only distributed rice and other food items as palliatives and sort of Constituency Projects worth N100 million per Federal Constituency and N200 million per Senatorial Constituency,” a post on X read in part on Sunday.
Palliatives worth N100 million and N200 million for 360 representatives and 109 senators, respectively, amount to N57,800,000,000.
Although the presidency has claimed that it is giving food items, not the cash equivalent, many constituents have pointed out how billions can be embezzled through the programme.
“The President should have engaged the services of private logistics companies to distribute the pallative house to house in each local government and take feedback from landlord associations. Some of these reps or senators will divert the items and sell them,” Ojo Oluwadare opined.
The presidency had also stated that it shared bags of rice to state governors in December.
In another conflicting statement, Hope Uzodinma, the Governor of Imo State, said that the rice Tinubu gave his state was not a government intervention. Uzodinma told members of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) this on Tuesday at the CAN secretariat in Owerri during the flag-off ceremony for the distribution of rice to the five south-east states.
The Imo State governor said that Tinubu gave the state governors the rice palliatives as a personal gift.
The Tinubu-led administration prescribed palliative programmes worth over N300 billion within its first six months. Citizens have, however, expressed more concerns about embezzlement of funds due to a lack of transparency in the delivery of palliatives to them.
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