Tinubu’s minister accuses Obaseki of repackaging FG’s rice

Minister for Niger Delta Development, Abubakar Momoh, has accused Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State of re-bagging food items from the federal government to give the impression that the state government sponsored such relief materials for the people of the state.

Momoh, who spoke in an interview with Channels TV,  was reacting to claims that the federal government failed to deliver on its promise to distribute 20 trucks of rice to the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), to cushion the effects of food inflation in the country.

The minister, an indigene of Edo State, said he watched on television how protesters broke into some warehouses and looted bags of rice which some state governors refused to share to the masses.

Although he did not mention the affected states, protesters recently looted bags of rice in a warehouse in Edo.

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He expressed anger that Obaseki, while addressing protesters recently, reportedly said he would take their message to President Bola Tinubu.

He said: “I think any governor that says that he has not received 20 trucks of rice is not being fair.

“In the case of Edo State that you just mentioned, look at what happened, you see on social media, and television how people went into warehouses, broke into warehouses and brought out these goods.

“The Edo governor, for instance, got his own and I can say in clarity that there are some state governors who of course engineered this process. Even the governor of Edo State you have just mentioned, recently when the protest started, he was the one that organised people at King Square and addressed them and at the end of the day, what did he say? He said I want to carry your message to the federal government in Abuja.

“We expect such a governor to address the problems in Edo State. How many roads has he been able to tar? How many erosions problems has he been able to solve? But rather what he does is that if the government brings relief like this, he repacks them and puts his name. We saw what happened during COVID-19 and that is something that is happening today.

“We have seen so many governors distributing relief materials, both rice and fertilizers. For instance, I watched the Bayelsa State Governor, directing that no person in government should get any dime from this rice. And the same thing on other states that I watched on TV telling them the same thing. But in the case of Edo State, there is nothing like that.”

Reacting, Special Adviser to the Edo State Governor on Media, Crusoe Osagie, in statement berated Momoh for “attempting to mislead the public” on the state government’s feeding programme.

He noted that claims by the minister that the bags of rice allocated to the state by the federal government were repackaged and distributed by the state government were completely false and malicious.

Osagie said the state government had in March, 2024, designed a feeding programme that was implemented through religious institutions in the state with over N2.2bn released to Christian and Muslim bodies to implement the programme.

The statement read in part: “The state would like to place on record that the reference made by the minister that the bags of rice allocated to the state government by the federal government were rebagged and distributed by the state government is completely false and malicious.

“The state government had in March designed a feeding programme that was implemented through religious institutions in the state. Over N2.2bn was released to Christian and Muslim bodies to implement the programme, which has been very successful.

“The case of looted bags of rice referenced by the minister has been put to rest by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), who have explained that it was an incident at the residence of one of its vendors.

“But unfortunately, the All Progressives Congress (APC), whose propaganda the minister appears to echo in his interview on national television, seems to have an axe to grind with the Christian umbrella body.

“It was mischief unexpected of a top government official to claim credit for the relief materials being distributed by CAN under the sponsorship of the State Government. Also, it is expected that a member of the federal executive council, the highest government decision-making organ in the country, will be able to make factual statements about the federal government’s own feeding programme.”