United Action Front of Civil Society has decried the N8,000 monthly handout proposed by the Federal Government, describing it as “another grand deceit for yet-to-be disclosed (or otherwise covertly selected) 12 million poor and vulnerable households”.
Head, National Coordinating Centre, Olawale Okunniyi, who disclosed this in Lagos, yesterday, said there’s doubt no longer that the N500 million approved by House of Representatives on July 13, 2023 for provision of palliatives would be funded through an additional $800 million World Bank loan approved by the Senate.
He said: “It is worrisome that the new administration is treading the erroneous indebtedness of its predecessor. The United Action Front of Civil Society laments the reality of making the same poor citizens of Nigeria take the bitter pill of repaying a wrongheaded loan, supposedly being acquired in their interest, in the nearest future.
“It is also beyond doubt that the meagre monetary palliative could barely feed a family of two for five days, considering the fact that fuel price hike, in the name of subsidy removal, has deepened the proportion of multi-dimensional poverty in the country.
“The leadership of the organised civil society, therefore, considers the supposed intervention as erroneous and a poorly conceived ploy to hoodwink the masses, who have been unduly trampled and pauperised by the policy of the All Progressives Congress government under former President Muhammadu Buhari; a trend that is sadly being renewed under the new administration.”
Okunniyi said there are enough reasons to conclude that the monthly handout to a mere fraction of poverty-stifled masses would end up as another avenue for the corrupt enrichment of a few clique in power, as witnessed with previous supposed poverty alleviation programmes of the APC.
He added: “The United Action Front of Civil Society bemoans the ridiculous tokenism, which the new government is trying to foist on the country. It is indeed unfortunate that the government could be contemplating a meagre N8,000 six-monthly handout per tiny fraction of the several millions of households across the country, at a time that a whooping N70 billion has been voted for 469 member-National Assembly.”
