Residents of Kpakungu community in Chanchaga Local Government Area of Niger State have criticised members of the palliative committee in charge of the area for not utilising the N20 million naira given to their ward as palliative.
Some of the people who spoke with Newsline about their plights regarding the development of palliative but did not want their names mentioned in print said that what they were given as palliative was nothing to write home about, describing the action meted out on them as unfair after waiting for two days to have their shares with high expectations.
According to the residents, the people handling the distribution were seen moving from one house to another Thursday night and Friday morning, sharing one packet of spaghetti and one packet of macaroni per household; there was no rice, no oil, no tomatoes, and no beans. The question raised was what about the truck of rice allocated to each ward apart from the N20 million in cash?
They, however, called on the state government to investigate all those in charge of the palliative committee and give an account of what they did with the N20 million allocated to their ward, Minna South, which comprises 41 polling units.
The people, while expressing their displeasure over the insincerity of the palliative committee, said the plights of the downtrodden, who were the targeted beneficiaries aimed to cushion the effect of the fuel subsidy removal, were rather short changed from getting what they were supposed to be given while the rich got richer as they channelled the money for themselves.
They, however, blamed the state government for releasing the money meant for palliative to each ward to purchase food items by themselves and distribute.
The Assistant Public Relations Officer, APC, of Minna South Ward, Esther Gwonna, who confirmed the sharing of only one spaghetti and macaroni to a household in the area, told Newsline on Friday that what they shared with the people was what the palliative committee gave them to share.
Esther, while responding to a question from Newsline on what happened to the truck of food items allocated to each ward by the state government received from the federal government for distribution to the people in addition to the ones they were given money to buy, explained that they had not seen anything like that and said that what they were given to share with the people were the items bought from the market.
The Executive Chairman of Chanchaga Local Government Council, Hon. Aminu Ladan, a member of the committee, and all efforts to speak to him by Newsline between Thursday, the 2nd day, and Friday to get his comments proved unsuccessful as he refused to answer the calls put to him.
A Newsline correspondent who visited most of the polling units where the distribution of palliative was expected to be shared with the people, reported that none of the committee members surfaced in any of the polling units.