Oyo APC claims Makinde diverted N5.7 billion, palliatives

The All Progressives Congress in Oyo State expressed outrage on Tuesday over the alleged misappropriation of monies and food supplies supplied to the state by the federal government to ease the effects of hardship on the public as a result of the removal of fuel subsidies by the President Bola Tinubu administration.

According to report, Tinubu declared that his government would devise palliative methods to lessen the suffering of hunger and financial hardship among the nation’s poor.

Recall that some of these intervention monies and supplies were allegedly distributed through state and local governments in the previous several weeks, with certain state governments, including Kwara and Ogun, publicly confirming the news.

In a statement released on Tuesday in Ibadan, the state’s capital, Olawale Sadare, the APC’s publicity secretary, criticized the PDP administration in the state for willfully withholding information about the receipt, distribution, and management of money and food supplies delivered to the Oyo State government as the share of the state’s good people.

Almost all of the states of the federation have acknowledged receiving at least two billion naira of the five billion the federal government has set aside for payments to be made to the poorest of the poor through the states, he added.

“Last week, neighboring Osun and Kwara states admitted paying the sum of two billion naira into their coffers, but Makinde hid this from the public knowing in his typical manner.

The people of the state have been wondering where the 3,000 bags of rice that Makinde received from Abuja for the past six weeks, and there are signs that they may have been diverted in the same way that the COVID-19 relief supplies provided by the federal government, business organizations, and private donors were.

We also ask Makinde to clarify the rationale behind his directive to local government council chairs to transfer (to the state government account) the two tranches of N56 million that the federal government paid to their council accounts between August 16 and August 18 of this year as the shares of the third tier of government.

The 33 local government councils in the state received a total of N3.696 billion, but they were unable to use even a small fraction of it for the intended use.

“It is clear that Gov. Makinde’s contrived Palliative group, which was established about four weeks ago, was only intended to deceive the public because the group would ultimately have no function.

“We won’t be surprised, however, if the state government releases a few bags of rice and noodles to the committee in the coming days and asks them to distribute the same to a few PDP members just to create the appearance that the target population of poor people in society have benefited,” Sadare submitted.