During a recent plenary session in the Red Chamber, Senate President Godswill Akpabio disclosed that the federal government, through the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), has disbursed an extra N30 billion to each state governor in the federation.
This additional funding is specifically earmarked to address the soaring cost of living in their respective states and is separate from their regular monthly allocations.
Akpabio emphasized that these funds should be utilized exclusively to tackle the crisis of insufficient food supplies and cautioned against diverting them for unrelated purposes.
He stated, “We can see a lot of protests here and there, most of those sponsored protests are not aware of the kind of efforts being made by this senate to tackle the situation together with a joint management team of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
I must say that unverified report has it that each of the state governments in the last few months has received an additional N30 billion from the Federal Inland Revenue Service, outside their normal allocation from the federation account to assist them in ameliorating the food situation.
We believed that every state government should utilize the funds so received towards ensuring that food is available.”
The move comes amid rising food inflation in the country, with many Nigerians grappling with the escalating prices of essential food items. According to the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics, food inflation currently stands at a staggering 35.41%.
Despite the government’s declaration of a state of emergency on food security and efforts to release commodities from national strategic reserves, food prices continue to rise unabated.
