A member representing Ede North, Ede South, Egbedore and Ejigbo federal constituency of Osun State in the National Assembly, Bamidele Salam, has debunked insinuations in some quarters that he hoarded food palliatives purportedly given to him for his constituents.
Salam, in a press statement issued by Lubem Gena on behalf of his Media Unit on Thursday, confirmed that there is food palliative from the Federal Government for each of the federal constituencies in Nigeria, but noted that they were yet to be released to the lawmakers.
It reads in full, “The attention of the Media office of the member representing Ede North, Ede South, Egbedore and Ejigbo federal constituency of Osun State in the National Assembly, Representative Bamidele Salam, has been drawn to some false and malicious comments being propagated by some commentators on the Social Media.
“Even though one would have ordinarily ignored the perpetrators of the falsehood because they are known political online jobbers, we decided to make the following clarifications for the benefit of genuine information seekers who may be misled by the false publications in reference.
“This office wishes to confirm there is a food palliative for each of the federal constituencies in Nigeria as part of the 2023 supplementary budget of the Federal Government passed by the National Assembly.
“The programme is domiciled in the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security as part of its core mandate.
“Information available to this office indicated that the Ministry has awarded the supply of the food items to contractors about two weeks ago. We equally confirmed that the contractors and the Ministry are yet to conclude necessary documentation before supplies can be effected.
“The Hon member is in touch with the Ministry to confirm time and location of delivery in order to effectively monitor the even distribution to the four local governments after the items are supplied by the contractor.
“The food items distributed by the Hon member during the Christmas and New year celebrations are his personal initiative and has nothing to do with the ones being handled by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security which is yet to be delivered.”
