Ekiti State Governor, Mr. Ayodele Fayose, has described the N5,000 the Federal Government said it had started paying to the poor in Nigeria as a mere propaganda and advised it to stop running government and governance on propaganda.
He said: “A blind man will say it is when it gets into my mouth that I will say you are feeding me, not promises.”
The governor, in a statement on Tuesday in Ado-Ekiti by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Idowu Adelusi, said there was no evidence of the payment in his state, which is one of the states the federal government claimed the exercise had started.
He said apparently, the states the government claimed have started receiving the payment are APC-controlled states knowing fully that the governors cannot come out to disprove the payment.
He said the All Progressives Congress (APC) government led by President Muhammadu Buhari should come to the reality that Nigerians are hungry and also angry and that Nigerians are no longer interested in empty promises.
He also explained that the people have realised that the APC government only operates by deceit and that Nigerians are running out of patience.
Fayose challenged the government to publish the number of people receiving it and the accounts of those receiving.
He insisted that the economic policy of the federal government ahead of the 2019 elections is on how to entrench itself in power and not on the welfare of Nigerians.
He condemned the N2 billion to be spent on entertainment alone in the Presidential Villa in the 2017 budget.
While calling on the federal government to put a proper economic team, beyond party line, in place to salvage the economy, which he said is already on the floor as many businesses have been closed down, he appealed to the President not to allow Nigerians die before the so-called benefit and ‘change’ come to bear on them.
He explained the the federal government’s social intervention fund was World Bank project partnered by the Nigerian government and that the money has been paid by the World Bank since June, last year.
He said in Ekiti, he is paying over 10,000 poor people the social security package without any delay and procrastination in the last one year and urged the federal government to follow suit.
He explained that the “federal government’s N5,000 payment to the poor was designed in a way that governors are also involved because they are to clear and present prospective beneficiaries before payments are made.
It will be recalled that the federal government, in a statement on Monday, said: “Funds for the commencement of the payments in four states were released last week to the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) – the platform that hosts and validates payments for all government’s social intervention programmes. Funds for another set of five states to complete the first batch of nine states would follow soon.
“Though the sequence for the payment of the money would be operationally managed by NIBSS, beneficiaries in Borno, Kwara and Bauchi States have started receiving the money. The other states in the first batch to commence the CCT payments are Cross Rivers, Niger, Kogi, Oyo, Ogun and Ekiti states.”
In another development, Fayose advised the federal government to move in quickly and stop killings in Southern Kaduna, Kaduna State.
