“Demand from Obaseki, 35 other governors to account for huge windfalls from Oil subsidy and palliatives from President Tinubu”– Goddy Frank Okoyo

Instead of pointing the finger at the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led federal government as the major cause of the poverty and economic hardships that have adversely affect Nigerians, as a result of which there are ongoing countrywide street protests, protesters in Edo State have been called upon to instantly place a demand on the state governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki.

The nature of the demand is to specifically call him out to speak on what he had done with the huge funds which the state had so far received as bonanzas from the fuel subsidy removal and the numerous palliatives given to the poor and average people of the state by President Tinubu.

Advertisement

The call was made to the aggrieved protesters of the state, as well as the other 35 states of the country by Mr. Goddy Frank Okoyo (GFO), who is a Director of Diaspora Affairs to the 2024 Governorship Campaign Council of the state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Mr. Okoyo, a Canadian-based Chartered Accountant, Management Consultant and Behavioural Scientist, who is also versed about economic issues, observed that the bane of the nationwide protests, was mainly the failures of the governors to apply the bonanzas to cushion the pains of the subsidy removal.

Okoyo, who is more known as GFO, noted further that the protesters should consider the 2022 Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) report, as a basis of demanding some explanation from Governor Obaseki and other governors, hence it accurately implicated the 36 state governments of the federation as mainly responsible for the poverty, food shortage and economic crisis that plague Nigerians.

The MPI report, released in year 2022, as conducted by the Federal Bureau of Statistics, the offices of Bureau of Statistics of the 36 states and FCT, the United Nations and some other global institutions, castigated the 36 states as responsible for the acute poor living conditions of Nigerians, who the report classified as above 133 million people.

The 2024 MPI studies and report had covered three specific areas of acute poverty classification, as monetary, educational and infrastructural development.

“In the month of June, 2024 alone, the Governor Obaseki’s led government, had received a huge N11.1billion in additional to other grants, just like some other states that received about four and thrice as much, from the subsidy removal, which they either siphoned or misused.

“That the governor could divert the palliatives given to the poor people of Edo state, from where they were discovered, goes to confirm what happened to the huge money received from the subsidy removal. Also, food palliatives meant for the people, were diverted in the difficult months of COVID-19 pandemic in 2019.”

Okoyo, is a notable APC stalwart and philanthropist, who is a key facilitator of the activities of APC, in his home-state of Edo and the entire Diaspora.