THE BENUE STATE COVID-19 PALLIATIVES ON SALE IN KANO. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
Tyowua Iyorbo
Seriously? The explanations given by the Benue State Commissioner of Information and Tourism about how the Benue State COVID-19 palliatives ended up in Kano market, ringed so hollow that it reverberated from Kano to Makurdi and around the world. International donor organizations too have heard it.
Benue State has a huge population of internally displaced persons (IDPs), unpaid State workers, unpaid retirees (for years), poor farmers that don’t get anything from the government and move their produce to market on the most poorly maintained roads in the country. Poverty is a significant way of life in Benue State. With all these facts at hand, the traders were first in line to receive the COVID-19 palliatives meant for the poor in Benue State during the COVID-19 lockdown. How come?
Instead of heads to roll and the Benue State citizens to see transparency in their government, the governor quickly initiated a Benue Youth Conference as a diversion mechanism to confuse and assuage the restive Benue youth. ‘Abracadabra, catch me if you can’ government business management. Now a few “youth leaders” will be “settled” and life will go on, limping along (as badly as it always had been) in Benue State.
How many Benue people besides the politicians knew that there were both COVID-19 and CaCOVID palliatives distributed in Benue State during the most trying times of the COVID-19 lockdown? These are the same politicians that go to church every Sunday and have huge Thanksgiving celebrations in their local churches for blessings on their new loot. Whatever happened to the governor’s stern reprimand that: “if you chop money, money will chop you”?
Can someone wake him up from praying on his stomach to tell Benue State citizens the true story about their COVID-19 palliatives in Kano and when these will be brought back and distributed to the poor in Benue State.
The explanation of how these COVID-19 palliatives got to Kano market should not be simply accepted as fact. The fact that the traders got them ahead of the very poor in Benue State is international fraud, because the international agencies that give these food gifts usually write on the packages, “NOT FOR SALE”, to ensure that these get to the deserving needy people.
The fact that Benue State was specifically designated on the package and “NOT FOR SALE” visibly stamped on the package goes to show the goodwill from the donor organizations. This gesture should not be rubbished with this chicanery in full display to the international organizations that meant so well in their attempt at helping the poor. Bring back these palliatives and let the people who participated in this diversion be reprimanded to serve as an example. Let there be no sacred cows. The time to get it right is right now.
