- Directs immediate release of fertilisers, grains to 50m farmers, households
- Promises judicious utilisation of N500bn approved by parliament
President Bola Tinubu has directed the review of the N8, 000 conditional cash transfer programme envisaged to bring succour to most vulnerable households in Nigeria.
The President has also accepted that the whole gamut of palliative packages of government be unveiled to Nigerians.
He directed the immediate release of fertilisers and grains to approximately 50 million farmers and households, respectively, in all the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
His Special Adviser on Special Duties, Communications and Strategy, Dele Alake, who made these known in a statement on Tuesday night, said the approvals were in deference to the views expressed by Nigerians against the palliative measures.
Alake said that since subsidy has been stopped, the government had put in place a broad spectrum of reliefs to bring help to Nigerians.
He said it should be noted that the cash programme was not the only item in the whole gamut of relief package of President Tinubu, who, as a listening leader, had vowed to always put Nigerians at the heart of his policy and programme.
“You will agree with me that it has become part of the culture of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration to constantly dialogue with Nigerians who voted him into office.
“The President covenanted with Nigerians that their welfare and security will be topmost in the Renewed Hope Agenda of his government.
“In the last few days, the conventional and new media platforms have become awash with stories of the government intending to embark on conditional cash transfer to vulnerable households mostly affected by the painful but necessary decision to remove subsidy from petrol.
“The story has been widely reported that the Federal Government is proposing to give 12 million households from the poorest of the poor N8, 000 monthly for a period of six months as government palliative to reduce the discomfort being experienced by Nigerians consequent upon subsidy removal,” Alake said, regretting that “a lot of ill-informed imputations have been read into the programme by not a few naysayers.”
He added that the administration believed in the maxim that when there is prohibition, there must be provision.
The presidential spokesperson explained that the President further assured Nigerians that the N500 billion approved by parliament to cushion the pain occasioned by the end of subsidy regime would be judiciously utilised.
“The beneficiaries of the reliefs shall be Nigerians irrespective of their ethnic, religious or political affiliation.
“President Bola Tinubu has promised to always prioritize the wellbeing of Nigerians and he is irrevocably committed to the vow. A number of decisions taken so far by this Administration have buttressed this stance.
“You will recall that the President took a similar decision after listening to complaints from the business community/stakeholders about burdensome taxes, particularly multiplicity of taxes they are made to experience. This warranted the signing of four (4) Executive Orders cancelling some classes of taxes, while suspending the implementation dates of others.
“In addition, the President has also set up a Tax Reform/Fiscal Policy Committee to bring up recommendations that will engender a wholesome fiscal environment for the country and remove anti-business barriers,” he said.
The presidential spokesman assured Nigerians that “President Tinubu will continue to be a listening leader whose ears will not be dull to the views expressed by the citizenry. The President believes the government exists to cater for the interest of the people and he has demonstrated this so clearly.”
Meanwhile, the Nigeria Labour Congress has condemned the plan of the Federal Government to distribute N500bn as palliatives to Nigerians and government officials to cushion the effects of the removal of fuel subsidy.
The NLC, in a statement by its President, Joe Ajaero, on Tuesday, argued that the Federal Government was “seeking to impoverish the people further by taking steps that can only be described as robbing the people of Nigeria to pay and feed the rich.”
The apex labour organisation said rather than reciprocate the goodwill of Nigerian workers, the Federal Government had “insisted on treading the path of dictatorship.”
“It is on this basis that the NLC strongly condemns the decision of the Tinubu-led administration to seek the approval of the National Assembly to obtain another tranche of external loans worth N500b from the World Bank to carry out a phantom palliative measure to cushion the effect of its poorly thought-out hike in the prices of Premium Motor Spirit,” it said.
The organisation in Nigeria recalled that the $800m already proposed before the government’s devaluation of the naira was worth about N400bn, but had risen to about N650bn post-devaluation.
“It is from this, it proposes to bring out N500b for distribution.
“The proposal to pay N8,000 to each of the so-called 12 million poorest Nigerian households for six months insults our collective intelligence and makes a mockery of our patience and abiding faith in social dialogue which the government may have alluded to albeit pretentiously,” it added.
According to the NLC, the further proposal to pay National Assembly members the sum of N70bn and the judiciary N36bn is “the most insensitive, reckless and brazen diversion of our collective patrimony into the pockets of public officers whose sworn responsibility it is to protect our nation’s treasury.”
The labour body raised concerns that the move might amount to “hush money” and “outright bribery” of the other arms of government to “acquiesce the aberration.”
It decried the idea of a government that had foisted “so much hardship” on the people within nearly two months of assuming office making an “unconscionable” proposal that rewarded the rich in public office to the detriment of the poor.
“What this means all this while is that the government is seeking ways of robbing the very poor Nigerians so that the rich can become richer.
“There is no other way to explain the proposal to pay a misery sum of N8, 000 to each of the mysterious poorest 12 million households for six months which amounts to N48, 000 and pays just 469 National Legislators N70b or about N149m each while the Judiciary that has about 72 Appeal Court Judges, 33 National Industrial Court Judges, 75 Federal High Court Judges and 21 Supreme Court Judges and a total of about 201 Judges receive a total of N35b or N174m each.
“If these other two arms are projected to receive this, what members of the Executive Council will receive is better left to the imagination of Nigerians perhaps, the balance of N150bn will go to them,” Ajaero said.
