The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has alleged that disbursement of palliatives by the federal government has been enmeshed in primitive corruption.
The leading opposition party also decried what it described as lack of accountability in the disbursement of financial palliatives as it alleged diversion of billions of Naira as against providing supplies to poor Nigerians.
PDP in a statement signed by it’s National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan said “the PDP laments as worrisome, that at a time as this, the APC and its government would remain lethargic and allow sheer incompetence, greed, avarice, and primitive corruption to continue to constrict it into unnecessary parochialism in the handling of effort against the spread of COVID-19 in our country.
“Our party also bemoaned the lack of accountability and the manifest sleaze in the disbursement of financial palliatives with allegations of diversion of billions of naira to private purses to the detriment of poor Nigerians. Indeed, such is not the way to go.”
ALSO READ:Â COVID-19: Betting outfit, Bet9ja, donates N200m to FG, Lagos, Ogun govts, promises to double amount
The party in the statement also directed its members across the country to intensify their efforts in providing assistance to vulnerable Nigerians in their neighborhoods to further mitigate the socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 lockdown directives.
The PDP also called on more Nigerians to join public-spirited individuals and groups in extending assistance to vulnerable citizens in the overall effort to contain and check the spread of the pandemic in the nation.
President Muhammadu Buhari had in his national address to the nation urged then privileged members of society to take responsibility of supporting the vulnerable around them.
“We also call on all Nigerians to take personal responsibility to support those who are vulnerable within their communities, helping them with whatever they may need,” the President stated.
The PDP said its call was against the backdrop of the manifest failure of the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led administration to shelve its greed and corruption and make adequate provisions for social palliatives and other panaceas to Nigerians, despite the immense resources at its disposal.
The party maintained that its position was also in line with its manifesto and guiding principles to ensure the security, wellbeing, and happiness of all citizens, irrespective of creed, ethnicity and political persuasion, the PDP calls on all Nigerians to look beyond primordial considerations and join forces to defeat the virus.
The party, therefore, urges Nigerians to use this time to further display their spirit of brotherly care by assisting vulnerable persons around them particularly the aged, the unemployed as well as individuals and families whose means of livelihood had been crippled for the restriction directives.
The party, therefore, urged the Federal Government to be transparent and involve more capable Nigerian medical experts, researchers as well as equipment manufacturers to assist in checking the spread of the pandemic in Nigeria.
and then