Against the backdrop of the wholesale looting of COVID-19 palliatives from warehouses across Nigeria, the private sector-led Coalition Against COVID-19 (CACOVID) that donated many of the items has explained why the distribution was delayed in some states.
CACOVID, consisting of Nigerian businesspersons and corporate organisations, contributed billions of naira to help the country reduce the impact of the lockdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic on the most vulnerable citizens.
The #EndSARS protest, in which youth demanded the disbandment of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of the Nigeria Police, was hijacked by hoodlums who have been on a looting spree across Nigeria since last week.
It was reported that many cases of jailbreaks, destruction of properties and massive looting of government warehouses and private businesses.
Warehouses for the COVID-19 palliatives donated by CACOVID were massively looted in Lagos, Osun, Kwara, Cross River, Kaduna, Plateau and some other states. The stolen food items including garri, rice, spaghetti, Indomie and vegetable oil were carted away.
The food item packs were labelled ‘Not for Sale’, indicating that they should only be distributed for free.
While state governments and the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 have condemned the looting, many Nigerians have also asked why the donated items were warehoused while hunger ravaged the country.
While states like Lagos and Kwara began distribution of the items before the looting started last week, many others were yet to flag-off the distribution.
However, for the latter, the CACOVID team has taken responsibility for the delay.
“Some other states that still had palliatives in their warehouses chose to keep a strategic reserve ahead of a projected second wave of Covid-19,” the Nigerian Governors’ Forum earlier explained on Monday
But in a statement issued on behalf of the coalition on Monday, the Central Bank of Nigeria’s acting Director, Corporate Communications, Osita Nwanisobi, said the food relief items were to be delivered to almost two million most vulnerable families across the 774 LGAS in the country, as part of the private sector’s support to the national response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“At the time CACOVID embarked on the palliatives effort in April, we decided to procure the food directly from the manufacturers, to avoid a distortion of prices in the market. The food package was designed such that each of the nearly 2 million vulnerable families received: 10kg bag of rice, 5kg bag of garri/maize flour/semolina, 1 carton of pasta, 2 cartons of noodles, 5kg of sugar and 1kg of salt.
“Unfortunately, the very large size of the order, and the production cycle required to meet the demand, caused delays in delivering the food items to the states in an expeditious manner; hence the resulting delay in delivery of the food palliatives by the state governors. For instance, rice had to be milled, semolina and maize flour had to be processed, noodles and pasta had to be manufactured, and sugar had to be refined.”
According to Mr Nwanisobi, the first deliveries could not start until June while a sizable portion of the items had been delivered but yet to be distributed by the governors by October.
“Although various states and the FCT had commenced flag off of the distribution of the food items since early August, some could not conclude the distribution as they were yet to receive complete deliveries of the items allotted to them. In the interest of transparency and accountability, CACOVID will, in due course, be providing the full delivery schedule and flag-off dates by each state,” he said.
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