Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo clarified that the N570 billion released to governors was not a handout or bailout from President Bola Tinubu’s administration to the 36 states to enhance livelihood support for citizens across the country.
In a nationwide broadcast on Sunday, following the #EndBadGovernance protests that paralyzed activities in major cities, Mr. Tinubu revealed that his administration had released over N570 billion to the states.
“Additionally, more than N570 billion has been allocated to the 36 states to broaden livelihood support for their citizens, while 600,000 nano-businesses have benefited from our nano-grants. An additional 400,000 nano-businesses are anticipated to gain support,” the president stated, as Nigerians protested against hunger and corruption.
On Thursday, Mr. Makinde addressed the situation, explaining that the N570 billion was part of the World Bank-assisted NG-CARES project—a results-oriented intervention program aimed at helping states recover from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Let me state categorically that this is yet another instance of misrepresentation. The funds in question were part of the World Bank-assisted NG-CARES project—a results-oriented intervention designed to aid states in Nigeria’s COVID-19 recovery. CARES stands for COVID-19 Action Recovery Economic Stimulus. It was termed ‘Programme for Results’ because states had to advance their own funds to implement the program.
“After the World Bank verified the expenditures made by the states, it reimbursed them through the platform provided at the federal level. The federal government did not allocate any funds to the states; they merely acted as the conduit for reimbursements for money already expended,” the Oyo governor specified.
Acknowledging that the World Bank fund was a loan and not a grant to the states, Mr. Makinde detailed that each state in the federation is expected to repay the loan, noting that the NG-CARES program, initially called Oyo-CARES, predated the current federal administration.
“To directly address the statement, the federal government did not provide Oyo state with any funding. We were reimbursed for the funds (N5.98 billion in the first instance and N822 million in the second instance) we invested in the three result areas of NG-CARES, which includes input distribution to smallholder farmers within our state.
“In fact, when the World Bank observed our model for distributing inputs, which was preceded by biometric capturing of beneficiary farmers, they adopted it as the NG-CARES model,” the governor concluded.
