By Ogenyi Ogenyi,Uyo
The Center for Human Rights and Accountability Network (CHRAN) has expressed disappointment over the allocation of N70B of President Bola Tinubu’e palliative fund to National Assembly members.
It has however lauded the President for declaring a state of emergency on food security, noting that it was a timely intervention given the devastating effects of flooding, rising cost of farm inputs in the country.
The Human Rights Group made the assertion in a statement endorsed by its State Director in Akwa Ibom , Mr Franklyn Isong and Deputy Director, Public Affairs, Comrade Vincent Aluu made available to newsmen in Uyo yesterday.
It said the allocation under the guise of “supporting the working conditions of new members,” was unfair and a great disservice to the masses of the country who have continued to ensure ultold suffering caused by lack of people oriented policies of successive administrations in the country.
It therefore urged Tinubu to have a rethink on the allocation and initiate people’s centric and good welfare programmes that would reduce inflation, unemployment, create empowerment and capacity building through skills acquisition, saying these programmes would have direct bearing on the poor masses.
CHRAN further faulted the planned N500b palliative to 12 million households to be placed on N8000 stipends per month for six months, wondering what the paltry sum of N267.00 per day could so for a Nigerian given the present low purchasing power of the Naira.
It querried the method used by the federal government to determine the benefitting households, insisting that the programme would be another political settlement for the political class and the rich in the corridors of the government at the detriment of the poor masses.
The organisation noted that the inability of the Nigerian government to identify and properly track its citizens through a well documented national register despite the proliferation of biometric identifications renders the programme a wasteful political venture.
It urged Tinubu to expedite action in privatising or outright sell of the nation’s refineries and to make policies favouring modular refineries as permanent solution to the fuel subsidy removal rather than coming up with temporary measure that will only serve the interest of the political class.
The group commended the President for approving the immediate release of fertilizers and other farm inputs to help in boosting food security in Nigeria.
