Abubakar Momoh, Minister for Niger Delta Development, has accused Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki of rebranding all the relief items sent by President Bola Tinubu’s government into his name.
On Wednesday morning, the minister appeared in a broadcast on Channels TV, and addressed the circulating claims that President Tinubu had failed to deliver on his promise to distribute 20 trucks of rice to some states including Edo.
The minister denied this claim, saying that any state government insisting he had not received his share of the relief items was lying.
The Bola Tinubu-led government recently announced that it had distributed 20 trucks of rice to each state in the country in a bid to cushion the effects of food inflation and rising general inflation.
The development has however stirred controversies with two states, Edo and Adamawa coming out to deny that they received such rice.
The position was communicated by the Deputy Director of Media of the campaign organisation of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the September 21 governorship election in the state, Rev Olu Martins.
“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? He said this in reaction to reported claims by Adam Oshiomhole that the state government received rice from the federal government.”
Reacting to the claims, the Niger Delta Minister said the state governors were not being fair to President Bola Tinubu.
He said, “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.
“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 erosions 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.
“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.”
