On August 7, 2024, Abubakar Momoh, the minister of the Niger Delta appeared on Channels Television. While fielding questions on the measures of the federal government to reduce hardship, the minister made claims regarding the bags of rice shared with the states by the federal government.
When asked about whether his state, Edo State did not receive the trucks of rice, he said “ I think for any governor to say he has not received trucks of rice, he’s not being fair. In the case of Edo state you have just mentioned, look at what happened from social media and the television, how people went into warehouses and brought out these goods. The governor of Edo State got his own……. Rather, what he does is that when the government brings relief materials like this, he will rebag them and put his name. We saw what happened during the COVID and that is the same thing that is happening today.”
In a similar tweet by the verified Channels Television X (formerly Twitter) page, they tweeted “Edo Governor Re-bags FG Rice In His Name – Abubakar Momoh.”
The tweet has garnered over 152,000 views and 1,000 likes.
Claim: Edo governor rebags federal government rice in his name
Verdict: ALL WE KNOW
On July 15, 2024, the minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, disclosed that the federal government had dispatched 20 trucks of rice to each of the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.He said each state and the FCT had received 20 trucks containing 1,200 bags of 25kg of rice.
The minister made the remark to the State House correspondents at the end of the Federal Executive Council meeting presided over by the president, Bola Tinubu at the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja. He appealed to state governors to ensure equitable distribution of the rice to those who need it the most.
However, some state governors have disclosed that they have not gotten their share of the federal government’s rice. Some of them include the Abia state and Gombe state.
In an earlier revelation, the Edo state government alleged that they did not receive their share of the rice. However, Chris Nehikhare, the state’s commissioner for Information and Orientation confirmed that the state government received trucks of rice from the federal government after its initial denial. He confirmed the receipt of the rice at a news conference on 7th August 2024.
He added that the federal government delivered the rice to the state with instructions that it should be shared amongst the Internally Displaced Camps (IDPs), orphanages and local government areas.
The CDD War Room was in Edo state to confirm the development. We can confirm that Edo State received the trucks of rice and we also saw bags of rice carrying the Edo State government seal. However, we could not ascertain if the bags of rice were from the FG and rebagged by the state government.
We saw credible news reports showing the looting of some of these bags of rice during the last nationwide protest in Nigeria.
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