Nigeria’s private sector led Coalition Against COVID-19 (CACOVID) yesterday announced the flag-off of a nationwide distribution of multi-billion naira food palliatives and other relief items to mitigate the adverse effects of the coronavirus pandemic on vulnerable Nigerians.
The food relief materials for which the private sector operators are spending about N23 billion, will cover 1.7 million families amounting to about 10m people across the 774 local governments in the country, including the Federal Capital Territory.
CACOVID Administrator and CEO of Aliko Dangote Foundation (ADF), Zouera Youssoufou told newsmen in Lagos that the food distribution was the next phase in the line of actions mapped out by the coalition to partner government in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic and relief the vulnerable people of the burden posed by the outbreak of the disease.
Zouera said the Coalition has divided the nation into the six geo-political zones and the distribution was being flagged-off simultaneously in states such as Adamawa, Yobe, Ekiti Ogun, Delta, Edo, Kano, Sokoto, Kaduna, Plateau, and Nasarawa.
The food palliatives are coming on the heels of donations of medical equipment to state governments to strengthen their response capacity and outright building of isolation facilities in about 38 centres at the cost of N15bn.
CACOVID has also reinforced the testing capacity of the NCDC with the donation of over 300,000 test kits and PPEs.
Youssoufou said the Coalition’s primary focus was to aid the federal government in the fight against COVID-19. “Having done this successfully, we are turning our attention to offering a reprieve to households who have been adversely affected by the scourge of the virus.
“Through this Food Relief Programme, we will be reducing the risk of a second viral wave by encouraging people to remain indoors rather than expose themselves when seeking to provide food for themselves and their families.
Youssoufou further said: “The state governors and FCT minister, through the State Implementation Committee, will appoint a coordinator to diligently record and send an accurate and complete copy of the inventory tracker and goods delivery notes to the CACOVID Operations Center daily through the State CACOVID Representative to ensure timely and efficient delivery and proper transparency and accountability.
“CACOVID has laid out an elaborate plan and will be distributing the relief packages to the target beneficiaries across all 774 Local Government Areas in Nigeria with the state governors and the minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) as champions of this initiative in each state,” she added.
Explaining the strategy being adopted for the distribution, Osayi Alile, CEO, AspireCoronation Trust (ACT) Foundation, who is also CACOVID Operations Implementation Committee member, explained that the Coalition was not political party biased but discharging its mandates to all Nigerians as laid out in the CACOVID objectives and goals.
“The state government, through the State Implementation Committee, will organise for representatives of all the state local government areas (LGAs) to collect the allocations for each LGA and oversee the redistribution to each ward and onto each eligible beneficiary at the grassroots subsequently based on an agreed distribution schedule”, she explained.
The Group Chief Corporate Communication Officer, Anthony Chiejina stated that while the food distributions are going on across the nation the Coalition would continue to intensify its grassroots awareness campaign on the virus simultaneously.
