Residents of Borno, Kano, other northern states express disappointment at Tinubu’s N8k palliative

Residents of some states in the North have criticised the offer of N8,000 palliative to Nigerians most hit by the removal of subsidy on fuel.

PoliticsNow surveyed some states, including Borno, Kano, Kaduna and Benue. The findings reveal the policy is not popular with many of the residents.

In the South, there is already wide scale rejection of the policy which the Federal Government says will result in the transfer of N8,000 into the accounts of 12 million vulnerable and poor Nigerian households.

The North has the largest chunk of the poor in Nigeria, according to local and international data collection organisations.

According to the multidimensional poverty index published by the NBS in September 2022, 65% of the poor (86 million people) live in the North, while 35% (nearly 47 million) live in the South.

In Kano, a random polling of some of the residents showed the N8,000 palliative isn’t popular among the people.

Some of the residents interviewed by PoliticsNow say the policy isn’t different from former President Muhammadu Buhari’s Conditional Cash Transfer of N5,000 to poor Nigerians. They said the policy was replete with fraud because, according to them, the real poor people didn’t benefit from it.

One resident, Abdullahi Tanko, a trader at the Kantin Kwari market, said he would prefer a return of the subsidy regime rather than the N8,000.

He said: “How much is N8,000 compared to the high cost of food? If Tinubu wants to help the poor in the North, he should return subsidy on fuel so that prices of food and transportation would reduce,” he said.

A resident of Maiduguri, Godiya Bwala, who also is a tricyclist operator, said the removal of fuel subsidy has sunk him deeper into poverty which N8,000 cannot remediate.

According to him, he charges about N100 to ferry passengers from one end to another in Maiduguri before the increment in fuel price. He said every attempt to increase the fare to N150 after subsidy removal, has failed because many couldn’t afford it. That they are forced to continue collecting N100 as the fare for commuting despite the more than 150% increment in fuel price.

The mood is the same when PoliticsNow spoke with some residents of Kaduna and Benue. They said only supporters of politicians would get the N8,000 while the real poor people remain shut out.