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.
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 was one of the states the federal government claimed the exercise had started.
He said apparently, the states they claimed had started receiving the payment were APC-controlled states, knowing 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 were hungry and also angry and that they were no longer interested in empty promises.
He also explained that the people had realized that the APC government only operated by deceit and that Nigerians were running out of patience.
Fayose challenged them to publish the number of people receiving it and their accounts
He insisted that the economic policy of the federal government ahead of the 2019 elections was on how to entrench themselves in power and not on the welfare of Nigerians.
He condemned the N2Bn to be spent on entertainment alone in the 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 of Nigeria, which he said was already on the floor as many businesses had been closed down.
He appealed to the President not to allow Nigerians die before the so-called benefit and ‘change’ comes to bear on them.
He explained that the “federal government’s N5,000 payment to the poor was designed in a way that the state 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 had 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.”