The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar -Farouq , on Wednesday insisted that the rice distributed to various states by the Federal Government was certified fit for consumption by the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control.
But NAFDAC’ s Director -General , Prof . Mojisola Adeyeye , had said on Tuesday that her agency did not know the status of the 1 ,800 bags of rice given to Oyo State by the Federal Government. This was after Umar -Farouq had announced on Monday that NAFDAC certified the rice .
Adeyeye had explained that NAFDAC was not invited to take samples and conduct consumption fitness test on Oyo rice consignment , a statement that stood at variance with the claims of the Federal Government .
Reacting to NAFDAC DG’ s statement on Wednesday , Umar- Farouq declared that she stood by her earlier statement .
The minister , who stated this while speaking at the daily press briefing by the Presidential Task Force on COVID -19 in Abuja, said NAFDAC and the Nigeria Customs Service should sort out the communication gap.
Umar- Farouq said , “On the statement of NAFDAC , we still stand by what we said because this was what was conveyed to us by Customs .
“ And a certificate was issued stating that the rice given to us was good for human consumption before we flagged off the distribution in Lagos State .
“ We can give you that certificate , maybe by tomorrow or later today . So , the NCS and NAFDAC , I am sure will sort out this communication gap and report back to this platform . ”
When contacted on Wednesday by one of our correspondents , the Public Relations Officer of the Nigeria Customs Service, Oyo / Osun Area Command , Abdullahi Musa, said senior officials in the Oyo State Ministry of Agriculture inspected the bags of rice and pronounced them good for consumption before they were taken out of the premises of the command .
The Customs spokesman said the Oyo State delegation was led by the Commissioner for Agriculture in the state who was accompanied by the Permanent Secretary in the state ’ s Ministry of Agriculture as well as the Special Adviser to the Governor on Agribusiness .
Asked whether it was true that Customs did not invite NAFDAC officials to inspect the rice given to Oyo , Musa said , “As I stated, if you have seen a high personnel of that type of office from the Ministry of Agriculture led by the commissioner with his team to come and certify, are we saying the office is not up to task ?”
He said there was nothing to suggest that the bags of rice had weevils during the time of inspection and eventual evacuation .
He added that Oyo State was the first to come for the rice and request by its officials to pick from a portion of the store was granted by Customs .
Musa said, “They came with their team to check for themselves to be very sure if the rice was actually good or not . As a matter of fact , they were even the ones that came first and they even requested to be allowed to choose the particular segment where their rice should be taken from and we granted their request as their host . ”

The recent announcement of plan to give Nigerians two months of free electricity as part of palliatives for COVID -19 is nothing more than propaganda that cannot work , the Transmission Company of Nigeria has said.
The TCN faulted the announcement by power distribution companies that the Federal Government and the National Assembly would pay for the proposed two- month free electricity for customers .
Discos made the announcement through their umbrella body , the Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors.
Reacting to the development in Abuja on Thursday, the Managing Director of the TCN , Usman Mohammed , said , “There is this information that went round that power is going to be free .
“ I don ’ t know where that information came from .
“ But I can tell you that there is nothing like power is going to be free because the Federal Government cannot make power free . The Federal Government does not own the power. ”
Mohammed explained that the Federal Government only owns the TCN while the generation and distribution companies were largely owned by private investors .
He said , “In the electricity industry , apart from transmission , which is just the transporter, all the other chains do not belong to the Federal Government . So I cannot understand how somebody will concoct that information . ”

Mohammed argued that those peddling the information were merely sharing propaganda that would not work.
He said , “But these are some of the people involved in propaganda who brand information that is very unnecessary , to be honest .
“ I think at this stage what we need to do is to sustainably supply electricity and that is what we are doing . ”
The TCN boss further stated that in the last two weeks that most parts of Nigeria had been on lockdown, operators in the power sector had worked and performed well .
However , the House of Representatives and electricity distribution companies raised a joint committee on the proposed two-month free power supply on Thursday.
Speaker of the House , Femi Gbajabiamila , who presided over a meeting in Abuja with the companies and other officials , said the joint panel would work out modalities for the proposed two-month bill waiver for the most vulnerable people in the country.

The Lagos- Ibadan standard gauge rail project is 90 per cent complete, the Federal Government said on Thursday.
Outgoing Permanent Secretary , Federal Ministry of Transportation , Sabiu Zakari , said this at the ministry ’s headquarters in Abuja while handing over to a new Permanent Secretary , Hussaini Adamu .
Presenting his stewardship at the ministry , Zakari expressed happiness that it was during his tenure that cardinal projects such as Abuja- Kaduna light rail train service was completed and put to use .
Zakari , in a statement issued by the ministry, stated that the Lagos- Ibadan standard gauge railway was 90 per cent completed , adding that what remained was the point linking the rail line to Apapa ports .
He said the Itakpe - Warri railline which was abandoned for over 30 years was completed while he worked at the ministry , adding that test runs were currently ongoing on the facility .

With a total of 133,227 beneficiaries, Katsina State is the highest recipient of the Federal Government’s Conditional Cash Transfer programme.

Lagos, Delta and Borno states had zero beneficiaries, according to an infographic published by the International Centre for Investigative Reporting on states captured in the CCT scheme and their respective number of beneficiaries as of April 9, 2020.

Data from the infographic showed that Katsina had the highest number of beneficiaries, followed by Zamfara and Jigawa.

The infographic, which was created on April 11, 2020, stated its source as the National Cash Transfer Office and revealed that 1,126,211 households were currently benefiting from the CCT programme.

Zamfara, Jigawa, Kano, Plateau, Kebbi, Kogi, and Benue states had 130,764; 99,044; 84,148; 78,430; 76,026; 62,129; and 58,943 beneficiaries respectively.

Nasarawa, Kaduna, Kwara, Gombe, Akwa Ibom, Yobe, and Bauchi states had 48,687; 35,384; 32,218; 26,532; 24,929; 24,814; and 23,305 beneficiaries respectively.

The number of beneficiaries in the Federal Capital Territory, Niger, Taraba, Adamawa, Osun, Oyo, and Cross River states were 20,129; 19,898; 17,803; 16,988; 15,572; 13,811; and 11,998 respectively.

For Edo, Bayelsa, Rivers, Abia, Anambra, and Imo states, the number of beneficiaries were 11,368; 9,805; 9,596; 9,347; 8,105; and 7,220 respectively.

The Senate President , Ahmed Lawan, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives , Femi Gbajabiamila , on Tuesday , met with the President , Major General Muhammadu Buhari ( retd. ) , behind closed doors to discuss the implementation of the National Social Investment Programme , among other issues .

This comes days after a clash between the National Assembly and the Special Adviser to the President on Social Investment Programme , Maryam Uwais , over the need for a reform of the process of implementing the programme.

Uwais had, on April 8 , responded to criticisms of the programme by the legislature with allegations that lawmakers were criticising the implementation of the SIP partly because some of them tried but failed in their bid to insert the names of would -be beneficiaries .

The National Assembly , however , replied that Uwais should be “ receptive to constructive ideas and suggestions expressed to enhance service delivery . ”

Lawan , who spoke to journalists after the meeting at the State House in Abuja, reiterated the call for reforms in the social investment initiatives.

He said , “ This afternoon, we had an engagement with Mr President to discuss with him what we , the leadership of the National Assembly , have resolved and our opinion on various issues regarding the fight against COVID- 19 in Nigeria and going forward.

“ We also believe that it is time to reform the way and manner we implement the Social Investment Programme . This is a very important programme that is to help Nigerians who are poor and vulnerable .
“ We believe that, having implemented this programme from 2016 to date , we should be reviewing to evaluate the efficacy and efficiency with which we have been implementing this programme. ”

The Senate President emphasised the need to have a transparent programme that would go down to the people that deserved the support and an equitable and fair projects as far as the geographical spread across the country was concerned .

According to him , the Federal Government is considering bringing the request for a stimulus package of N 500 bn to the National Assembly .

He said , “ We believe that we should be watching closely and it is with this respect we feel that we should be on standby so that, should there be a presentation of that request for the stimulus package to be passed , we simply reconvene in the National Assembly to look into the request of the executive arm of government with the intention of ensuring that the stimulus is available to Nigerians at this state . ”

Lawan stated that, among the discussions with Buhari , was the proposition that the various donations to Nigeria should go into a single account with a management fund committee that would be in charge of releases

Asked whether he wanted the national social register discarded, the Senate President argued that the present register was contrived by “the World Bank method, ” saying the distribution should be on the basis of senatorial districts, federal constituencies , or local governments .

According to him , the implementation procedure does not precisely capture the kind of beneficiaries that ordinarily should be .