Weekend Trust Page 3 Comment, Saturday April 5, 2025
As a consequence of failure in governance, a needless culture of palliatives recently evolved in Nigeria’s democratic history, which unfortunately had become a condescending tool used by state governments, lawmakers and other politicians to make citizens subservient, at least to their political interests.
Once there’s a public outcry over any untoward situation, including economic hardship, petrol tanker explosion, flood and fire outbreak, the distribution of rice and other food commodities as palliatives remained the immediate intervention provided by the government as if rice, in particular, is a cure-all solution for all challenges. At other times, motorcycles, Keke-NAPEP, and pet animals are also shared as palliatives.
The huge public funds expended by many state governments on the provision of palliatives with no obvious impact on the quality of life lived by citizens is a matter that has continued to give Nigerians serious concern. For instance, the huge resources recently appropriated by some northern state governments in the name of Ramadan feeding of masses attracted widespread criticisms from Nigerians, including those in whose name the feeding was supposedly provided.
While the Jigawa and Kano State governments respectively announced an expenditure of N4.8 billion and N8 billion for the 2025 Ramadan feeding programme, Sokoto earmarked N6.7 billion, Kebbi N1.5 billion, Niger N976 million, Yobe N298 million. Katsina State topped the chart with a budget of N10 billion for the same purpose.
The concern expressed by relevant stakeholders touched on the level of transparency and accountability of the huge sums of public funds spent by state governments on their Ramadan feeding programmes. In the case of Jigawa State, the Ramadan feeding initiative was jointly funded by the state and local government councils on a contributory ratio of 55:45. The uncertainties of who were the actual beneficiaries of the feeding programme and what was the nature of distribution pattern are some of the unanswered questions.
The fact that the Jigawa State governor in unscheduled visits he paid to some feeding centres in Dutse Local Government Area during the last Ramadan expressed dissatisfaction with the arrangements he saw justified public criticisms that bordered on the lack of transparency and accountability of the feeding programme. Governor Namadi expressed strong disapproval at the instances of mismanagement and inefficiency that characterised the state’s 609 feeding centres meant to provide three different food items to 182,700 poor and vulnerable people daily.
“I am disappointed but not surprised at the level of mismanagement and neglect I have seen today. It is unacceptable that some individuals would seek to cheat and deprive our people of the benefits they deserve,” he lamented.
With all the operational ambiguities that symbolised the Ramadan feeding programmes, the initiative essentially epitomises mismanagement of the scarce public resources. The lack of a reliable means for verifying beneficiaries only offered a convenient platform for corruption to set in. The newest, yet, coolest means to stealing public funds now lies in the provision of palliatives, including public feeding of vulnerable persons during Ramadan.
Whereas the role of interventions by the government cannot be dismissed in terms of national emergencies, vulnerable groups of Nigerians would feel more impact if such funds were strategically deployed to agriculture, empowerment of youths and women with skills and the establishment of small scale industries, all of which seek to provide long term solutions.
The government is getting the essence of palliative wrong because of the too much premium it has placed on it, which also explains why it is not getting some of the solutions to our national challenges right.
Palliatives are supposed to be interventions for specific purposes, meant to provide some temporary relief, not a permanent solution to a critical national phenomenon, such as poverty and unemployment. Palliatives are understandable if offered to people in war-turn regions of the Sudan and Gaza.
Leaders, particularly state governors, have prioritised palliatives in their governance issues, to the extent that it is almost becoming a basis for assessing the performance of elected public officers, all because of their misconstrued perception of some socioeconomic indicators, including poverty and empowerment.
Allocating huge funds for Ramadan feeding is not the best approach to tackling the country’s economic challenges faced by citizens. The temporary solution or relief offered by palliatives in the form of feeding or motorcycles is only but a temporary postponement of the evil day.
Poverty and unemployment are better fought and conquered through the empowerment of citizens with skills, not by palliatives. No country develops on the distribution of palliatives. Nigerians are often shortchanged when leaders prioritise palliatives, with an ulterior motive to pilfer public funds that are huge enough to provide permanent solutions to the country’s socioeconomic challenges.
With the country’s huge economic potentials, including population, which offer strong opportunities for reducing poverty and unemployment rate, Nigerians, especially the youth, need skills more than they need empowerment with palliatives.