Owukpa Advocacy Forum Congratulates Tinubu, Cautions Federal Gov’t On N8,000 Palliative

A good governance, transparency and rural development advocacy group, Owukpa Advocacy Forum (OAF), has cautioned President Bola Tinubu administration on the disbursement of the planned N8,000 palliative to ‘vulnerable Nigerians’ to cushion the effects of fuel subsidy removal.

The Forum, in a statement signed by its National Coordinator, Hon. David Abakpa Otobo, on Friday, commended President Tinubu on a few economic policies put in place so far since assumption of office as President and Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces.

Recall that Tinubu had secured approval of the National Assembly on Thursday to borrow $800 million for N8,000 monthly palliative to 12 million low-income households for six months.

Though Tinubu, in the letter of the loan approval request to the Senate, said, “In order to guarantee the credibility of the process, digital transfers will be made directly to beneficiaries’ accounts and mobile wallets,” OAF cautioned the Federal Government not to follow the path of the immediate-past Buhari administration where trillions of Naira were misappropriated by corrupt politicians and their allies as seen in the Social Security Programme, N-Power Programme and School Feeding Programme.

The group said in the statement, “We congratulate Mr. President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu on his victory in the last presidential election and also thanking him for the bold steps taken so far.

“We have been following his economic policies, agenda and appointments with keen interest. We must commend him for building bridges across the country and his will to revive the dwindled Nigeria economy.

“Mr. President’s declaration of state of emergency on food security yesterday shows that he is a proactive President and leader Nigerians can trust again.

“However, we are using this medium to advocate and campaign to ensure transparency in the disbursement of the planned N8,000 monthly palliative to 12 million vulnerable Nigerians. We don’t want this palliative to go the way other social schemes have gone to the pockets of corrupt politicians at the expense of poor Nigerians.

“We, therefore, call on Mr. President to chair and monitor the selection and the implementation processes by himself to ensure the ‘vulnerable Nigerians’ are not left out of the scheme.

“We do hope that Mr. President will continue to uphold his zero tolerance for corruption and violence in the country to live up to the expectations of the  ‘Renewed Hope’ of his party’s campaign slogan.”