FG excludes Lagos, Borno, Delta from cash transfer as N’West gets biggest share

Lagos, Borno, Delta states have been excluded from the National Cash Transfer for COVID-19, while the North-West zone gets the biggest share.

  The National Cash Transfer Office (NCTO) infographic created on April 11, 2020, and made public by the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR) revealed the discrepancies in the cash transfer scheme.

The disclosed that 1,126,211 households were currently benefitting from the conditional cash transfer including Katsina (133,227), Zamfara (130,764), Jigawa (99,004), Kano (84,148) and Plateau (78,431), while Borno, Delta and Lagos got zero allocation, among others.

A public analyst, Bola Bolawole, lamented what he described as an unequal relationship among the component parts of the country given the national transfer scheme.

He said, “While there is nothing national in it, it is actually a transfer of the wealth of one section of the country to another. It shows the nepotism and tribalism of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, whether in appointments or allocation of resources, projects and even the coronavirus pandemic.

On his part, Publicity Secretary of Afenifere, Yinka Odumakin said the states being totally locked down received nothing, adding that the country could not continue this way.

Meanwhile, the Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has introduced a scheme to cushion the effect of the lockdown on on its residents. The new palliatives were rolled announced less than 24 hours after President Buhari extended restriction of movement in Lagos, Ogun and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.

The scheme came on the heels of the commencement of the second part of Food Stimulus Packages being distributed to 250,000 residents since the lockdown directive came into effect.