Nigerian Governors, COVID19 palliatives and the rest of us
ßy Abasifreke Idiong
Recently, hungry Nigerians uncovered hidden warehouses, where Nigerian greedy emperors, misnamed governors stocked up Covid19 palliatives for themselves, inspite of the ravaging hardship plaguing the nation.
Lagos, Ogun, Osun, Edo, Kwara, Jos, Enugu, Asaba, Abuja and Calabar became instant flashpoints of sorts.
But while we were still trying to recover from the case in Lagos where a king had cornered a consignment of palliatives worth tens of millions of Naira into a personal makeshift warehouse, videos emerged from Calabar that made the Lagos booty look a child’s play.
From Ekorim by First Bank to Calabar South, from Lemna to 8Miles, then Ikot Ishie, angry
Cross Riverians combed through Ayade’s Fabrication Academy Warehouse in Calabar, uploading and distributing what ordinarily they didn’t have to sweat for.
Even soldiers and the police took pity on them. And so instead of attempting to halt the rampaging youths, the officers brought in some order, supervising and repeatedly reminded them to slow down as it was enough for everyone.
Like the biblical manna, Ayade’s booty in Calabar had an air of ‘inxhaustibility’, so much so that despite the over night lootology, cripples and the lame who managed to make it to any of the three or so covert warehouses could still help themselves to several cartons of food.
There’s this particular viral video on YouTube showing a policeman handing out cartoons of meal to a crippled who arrived the following morning!
Such was the spoil in volume and depth!
Expectedly, Ayade neither found the magnanimity of the officers wholesome, nor the discovery of his warehouses comely.
Embarrassed, it turned out to be a really long night for his excellency, the Olimpotic Meristematic Olympusgoospamahic
‘gobanor’.
And so before you could say jack robinson, Gov. Benedict Bengioushuye Ayade
had declared a curfew in Cross River State, as early as dawn, on saturday, after directing via a press release signed by his aide on media & publicity, Christian Eta, that ‘security forces be mobilised to different locations in Calabar’.
His only grouse is simple: his hungry subjects had managed to somehow discover the warehouses he had stashed away a portion of their patrimony and commonwealth, and even proceeded to take what belongs to them!
Poor o’l Prof, he must be feeling really hard done. But equally foolish is his lame, face saving explanation! I’m told he said distributions of the palliatives were ongoing … to only God knows who!
Story for birds, if you ask me.
Ayade isn’t alone in this!
The startling discoveries in Lagos, Edo, Osun, kwara, Ogun, Abuja, etc, are just a tip of the iceberg.
I was one of those who voiced an objection when FG decided to hand over the distribution of Covid19 palliatives to state governors, many of whom aren’t at home with the stark realities of the suffering masses.
And truly, it turned out that just a handful were lucky to be insulted with the 2 cups of Abakiliki rice, a cup of beans, 1⅓ cup of garri, and two party-crested onions in circulation to families at the time, with the vast majority of Nigerians getting nothing!
The so-called palliatives didn’t reach 90% the masses.
Hungry, hapless and humiliated, Nigerians again exonerated their oppressors-in-chief, the same lords who had stashed away their commonwealth in secret chambers, and took turns instead to abuse and rain curses on anything FG.
Buhari hasn’t performed optimally, the federal government is barely crawling, but so too are countless state governors and council chairmen, closest to us!
Many governors had barely taken delivery of the FG palliatives when “press & release” started flying all over the place to the effect that the ‘rice component of the palliatives they [governors] hoped to receive had expired.’
Quite Insane. And up until this minute no one knows where the expired rice were incinerated!
Today, Ayade says in a statement the distribution has been ongoing!
Can you beat that!
Evil governors deep in primitive accumulation of lucre form the nucleus of our problems in Nigeria, and many of them are patently evil.
They sat on palliatives meant for the poor masses, but are usually the first to cough and kick and curse and blame the FG. It’s a cover up, what sociologists call scapegoating.
This is evil and wicked, Mr governor, fear God.
Covid19 was pure business for the majority of Nigerian governors, with many of them hitting it really big.
Yet many of them still took what was supposed to be given to the poor.
Your excellencies, longsuffering Nigerians are not fools.
Unless you release what’s due them now, you can expect more warehouses holding palliatives to be torched in the coming days. People are hungry!
A friend said the booty from Cross River’s neighbors will canonize the sainthood on Ayade! And I couldn’t stop laughing.
I have a word for you, too, fellow Nigerians, particularly, those who rushed to upload palliatives and food items from those warehouses, please check the expiry dates and NAFDAC’s imprimatur on them. Many of those things arrived since March.
It’s time we held governors to account.
I’m still shocked at the unbriddled penchant for stealing among some in our rulling class!
I’m sure even Joseph at the bossom of Abraham will cringe in shock right now at the sheer volume of Covid19 palliatives thieving Nigerian governors amassed & stored up for themselves, because he never stocked up that much for the whole world during the famines in Egypt.
