The Senator representing Edo North senatorial district, Adams Oshiomhole, has reacted to the N500bn palliatives to Nigerians to reduce the discomfort being experienced by Nigerians due to fuel subsidy removal.
The Federal Government proposed to give 12 million households from the poorest of the poor N8,000 monthly for a period of six months. However, President Bola Tinubu has directed a review of N8,000 conditional cash transfers.
While speaking in an interview with Channels Television’s Sunday Politics on the immediate measures to alleviate the pains of Nigerians, he assured that the President is anxious to have the money out to targeted beneficiaries.
“We have approved a palliative package as requested by the executive and there has been a couple of presentation as to the best way to administer it…about 500 billion. I think the challenge the government is facing is the usual stuff of not having reliable data. Not many Nigerians believe that the data that was used by the previous administration was reliable.
“As much as you much to rush to treat a patient, you don’t want to throw the medication at the wrong person and you want to ensure that there is accountability and money paid can be verified and real human beings can lay claim. I’m sure he (the President) wants to get the targeted beneficiary to begin to collect whatever it is due to them.”
Addressing the question of if the current administration had a thought-out plan before the removal of the subsidy and why it’s taking a long time for President Tinubu to fix the pain of Nigerians based on the government’s policy, Oshiomhole stated that President Tinubu had so far shown commitment through plans to adjust wages in the formal sector and appropriate funds to the most vulnerable people.
Meanwhile, he described the N30,000 monthly minimum wage as a “criminal wage.”
“What we call minimum wage is a criminal wage. If you exchange N30,000 at N800 or N700 to the dollar, what does that translate to? So, the value of that minimum wage when it was N125 – when it was first introduced under, I think, (Shehu) Shagari’s government – is about two times or three times the value many years later, even in the public service.”
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