Ibadan residents protest govt’s cash transfer claim, say ‘we didn’t get any money’

By JEREMIAH OKE, Ibadan

Residents of Ona-Ara Local Government area of Oyo State have staged a protest to register their displeasure over the handling of the government’s conditional cash transfer to the poorest households in their local government.

Federal government had, last week, announced payment of the conditional cash transfer to the poorest households in the country as palliative measure for the stay-at-home policy of the federal government to fight the spread of the coronavirus in the country.

The residents of the local government, however, staged a protest on Tuesday to demand the names of the beneficiaries of the money transfer in the community.

While speaking on a popular radio station in Ibadan, the leader of the federal government delegation to the state, Mr. Oyekola Oladipo, said all the traditional leaders were aware of the process of the selected beneficiaries of the palliative measure.

Oniladuntan of Laduntan land, Oba Adebowale Adeyemi (JP) in Ona Ara local government area of the state and Baale of Akanran in the same council, Baale Toheeb Alawaye in separate interview with Daily Trust on Thursday in Ibadan said none of their subjects in the council benefited from the federal government’s palliative measure.

Oba Adeyemi said; “we don’t know anything about it and we are yet to see anyone in our council to confirm to us that they benefited from the money. The man said on the radio that we were all carried along before disbursement of the cash, but I want to tell the entire world that we are not aware and none of our people has received money.

“If federal government really mean to support the poor, community leaders shouldn’t be exempted. We know those who are extremely poor in our locality and with their monitoring team, we know how to distribute it. But as they have done it now, they can only tell us those who get it,” he said.

On his part, Baale Toheeb Alawaye said people were not happy in his area for announcing on radio that they have given them money when they didn’t get money from government.

He said: “We don’t know people who received the money in Ona-ara local government. When we heard that Baales are the one given them the names of the indigent people in our local government, we were surprised because it was a lie. They didn’t give any of our people in this council.

“Our people troop out to check those who received the money at the Ona-Ara local government guest house when they heard the news, but we could not see anyone at the guest house and that was why they embarked on the protest. We are surprised to hear that money was disbursed,” he said. (Daily Trust)