NLC warns it will be difficult to feel impact of N5bn subsidy

The N5 billion palliative package promised by the federal government for each state won’t equal N1500 per person when distributed among the more than 133 million multifacetedly impoverished Nigerians, according to Joe Ajero, president of the Nigerian Labour Congress.

Ajero stated this on Friday during an interview on the Politics Today programme on Channels Television.

Citing data from the National Bureau of Statistics, he claimed that N185 billion could not possibly make a difference for the 133 million multifacetedly impoverished Nigerians.

The leader of the labour union insisted that even if the money were translated to the equivalent of six trailers of rice, it would not equal one cup of rice for each person.

He continued by saying that more Nigerians had crossed the line into extreme poverty between the first and most recent increases in the price of petrol at the pump.

“Let us assume that it is a palliative and not a loan, you will agree that it is difficult to feel the impact of such an amount at a time like this when the Bureau of Statistics has come up to say that over 133 million Nigerians are multi-dimensionally poor.

“You start to wonder about the impact of N185bn to 133 million people by their admittance, who are multi-dimensionally poor.

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“In fact from the first increase in pump price of petrol and the last one, a lot of people moved from the borderline to a very high level of poverty. If you calculate and do an arithmetic on that, you will discover that it won’t amount to N1500 per person and you ask if that’s the impact that we want to achieve,” he said.

Earlier, the Presidency said the Federal Government is on standby to monitor the distribution of palliatives – meant to cushion the impact of subsidy removal – to Nigerians at the state level.

Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, made this known on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Friday.

“It is fair to say that there does not need to be a check. There needs to be a means of monitoring which is why federal regulators are involved; which is why we have put in place the palliatives distribution,” he said.

The Federal Government approved N5 billion for each state and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to enable them to procure food items for distribution to the poor in their respective states.

Governor Babagana Zulum of Borno State disclosed this at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, shortly after the National Economic Council (NEC) meeting on Thursday.

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