Minister of Niger Delta Development, Abubakar Momoh, has criticized state governors for their greed over the palliatives distributed by President Bola Tinubu’s administration to alleviate economic hardship.
Momoh particularly accused Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki of rebranding relief items sent by the federal government as his own.
In an interview with Channels Television on Wednesday, Momoh addressed claims that President Tinubu failed to deliver on his promise to distribute 20 trucks of rice to several states, including Edo.
The minister dismissed these claims, stating that any state government denying receipt of its share was lying.
The Tinubu-led government recently announced the distribution of 20 trucks of rice to each state to cushion the effects of food and general inflation.
However, controversies arose with Edo and Adamawa states denying they received the rice.
Rev. Olu Martins, Deputy Director of Media for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) campaign in the upcoming Edo governorship election, stated, “The Edo State government did not receive any rice from the Federal Government or Aliko Dangote Foundation. Mind you, Mr President did not mention in his speech on Sunday that rice was given to any of the states. It may be that it is still in the offing, because if he sent 20 trucks of rice to Edo State, which ministry did it go through? Which ministry or agency received it in Edo?”
This was in response to claims by Adam Oshiomhole that the state government received rice from the federal government.
Reacting to these claims, Momoh stated, “I think any governor that says that he has not received 20 trucks of rice is not being fair. In the case of Edo State that you just mentioned. Look at what happened, you see on social media, and television how people went into warehouses, broke into warehouses and brought out these goods.”
He continued, “The Edo Governor, for instance, got his own and I can say in clarity that there are some state governors who of course engineered this process. Even the governor of Edo State you have just mentioned, recently when the protest started, he was the one that organised people at King Square and addressed them and at the end of the day, what did he say? He said I want to carry your message to the Federal Government in Abuja.”
“We expect such a governor to address the problems in Edo State. How many roads has he been able to tar? How many erosion problems has he been able to solve? But rather what he does is that if the government brings relief like this, he repacks them and puts his name. We saw what happened during the COVID and that is something that is happening today.”
Momoh also contrasted this with other governors who have distributed relief materials transparently. “We have seen so many governors distributing relief materials, both rice and fertilisers. For instance, I watched the Bayelsa State governor, directing that no person in government should get any dime from this rice. And the same thing on other states that I watched on TV telling them the same thing. But in the case of Edo State, there is nothing like that.”
