Oyo State Governor who is also the Deputy Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, Seyi Makinde, has disagreed with President Bola Tinubu over the claim made during the nationwide broadcast on Sunday that the sum of N570 billion was released to the 36 states of the Federation.
Governor Makinde made the counter-claim in a newsletter published on the state’s official website on Thursday, stating that the funds disbursed was not a direct allocation from the federal government.
Contrary to the claim made by President Tinubu that the largess was from the federal government, Governor Makinde explained that the money received by the states were actually the COVID-19 funds from the World Bank where the federal government acted only as an intermediary between the international creditor and the 36 states.
The statement was apparently responding to an open letter addressed to him by a concerned citizen, A.M. Ashagidigbi in a viral post, demanding information on how the state government spent the supposed N570 billion.
Ashagidigbi had written in the letter, “Your Excellency, our dear governor, I wish to humbly request that you mandate your Commissioner for Information or any appropriate media office, to, as a matter of urgent public importance, furnish the people of Oyo State the following information:
“What date did Oyo State take its own share of the money; how much was shared to our state; how did government share this money among the 33 local governments in our state, and how was the money distributed among our people, and who and who were the beneficiaries of these funds?”
The citizen also wrote to ask if the government channel the money towards the completion of ongoing capital projects, when the state government take delivery of the 20 trucks of rice and if the trucks of rice had been delivered including if the people of the state benefit from it.
“Your Excellency, our people deserve to know exactly what is happening to their money,” the writer had requested.
However, Governor Makinde, in the statement said, “Before I speak more on further actions we have taken to show our commitment to productivity and sustainability, let me respond to a long message I received earlier in the week from a concerned citizen.
“The message was about a purported N570 billion Hardship Fund “given” to the 36 States by the Federal Government. I was queried about what I used the money for.
“Let me state categorically that this is yet another case of misrepresentation of facts. The said funds were part of the World Bank-assisted NG-CARES project—a Programme for Results intervention.
“The World Bank facilitated an intervention to help States in Nigeria with COVID-19 Recovery. CARES means COVID-19 Action Recovery Economic Stimulus.
“It was called Programme for Results because States had to use their money in advance to implement the programme. After the World Bank verified the amount spent by the State, it reimbursed the States through the platform provided at the Federal level.
“The Federal Government did not give any State money; they were simply the conduit through which the reimbursements were made to States for money already spent,” Makinde said.
He further explained that the funding was contingent on what the states had already spent on COVID-19 programmes, meaning the World Bank was simply reimbursing what the states had used to address the pandemic crisis.
He further clarified that the funding disbursed by the World Bank to the state was not a grant, but a loan that is expected to be paid back by each state.
Governor Makinde said the NG-Cares loan, as it is dubbed, predates Tinubu’s administration as the facilities were received in different batches.
Out of the said amount, Makinde said Oyo State received N5.98 billion in the first instance and N822 million in the second instance as reimbursement which was part of the investment of the State government under the programme.
“It is important to note that the World Bank fund is a loan to States, not a grant. So, States will need to repay this loan. Note also that NG-CARES, which we christened Oyo-CARES in our State, predates the present federal administration.
“So, in direct response to the message, the Federal Government did not give Oyo State any money. We have reimbursed funds (N5.98 billion in the first instance and N822 million in the second instance) we invested in the three result areas of NG-CARES, which includes inputs distribution to smallholder farmers within our State.
“In fact, when the World Bank saw our model for the distribution of inputs preceded by biometric capturing of beneficiary farmers, they adopted it as the NG-CARES model,” Makinde added.
Recall that President Tinubu had in the broadcast announced the sum of N570 billion disbursed to the 36 States as a palliative measure to ameliorate the citizens’ economic condition.
Tinubu claimed that the State received this huge sum as a grant from the federal government.
He said, “Also, more than N570 billion has been released to the 36 states to expand livelihood support to their citizens, while 600,000 nano-businesses have benefitted from our nano-grants. An additional 400,000 more nano-businesses are expected to benefit.”
