The Director-General of the Progressive Governors Forum, Salihu Lukman, on Saturday, urged the Federal Government to change its current approach to the disbursement of COVID-19 palliatives in order to achieve better coverage.

He also advised that the school feeding Programme should be suspended in the interim because most pupils who are the intended beneficiaries are currently at home.



Lukman said this in a statement issued in Abuja.

According to him, his intervention followed a careful assessment of the existing challenges and factors hindering the success of the fight against the pandemic.

He suggested among other things that the membership of the Presidential Taskforce should be expanded to include the National Assembly and State Governments to give more Nigerians a sense of ownership.

Salihu said, “Once the PTF is able to configure itself this way, the issue of palliatives and how to administer it can be easily handled.

“It is important that both the PTF and the Presidency are able to correct problems of trust and ensure that it is able to minimise all distractive debates around administering palliatives.”

On the school feeding Programme, he said, “Once schools are closed, there is no need talking of school feeding. This does not mean, the resources for the school feeding cannot be directed to support the families of the schoolchildren for the duration of the fight against COVID-19.

“It is simply a matter of redirecting how it is disbursed. In any case, whether we recognise that or not, so long as schools are closed, method of feeding those children have to change.

“On the whole, we need to appeal to both the PTF and Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs to try and assist the government to refocus national conversations around the fight against the spread of COVID-19 in the country away from issues of management of the palliatives.



“In some ways, the palliatives that should be the subject of national debate should not be the ones under the National Social Investment Programme, Important as the NSIP is, the PTF should be able to deliberate on nature and scope of the palliatives and decide on how best it should be handled in order to succeed in this critical fight against COVID-19.

“While considerations can be given to utilising some of the resources domiciled in the NSIP, as much as possible government and the PTF need to avoid a situation whereby the debate is reduced to academic exercise.

“It is important that everyone in government and the PTF is reminded about the fact that this is a fight that must succeed. In fact, it is a fight that required that we adopt the Machiavellian logic of the end justify the means, which should imply that any approach that should save the lives of Nigerians should be welcome.”

He noted that members of the PTF should bear in mind that they have the overriding burden to support President Muhammadu Buhari to succeed.

The PGF DG appealed to religious leaders to see the seriousness of the issue at hand and be guided in their conduct and utterances as the world struggles to deal with the Coronavirus pandemic. End.