The Chairman of the State Selection Committee of the Federal Special Public Works Programme, Rivers State,Dr Innocent Barikor, says no amount of pressure will force the commitee to allow politicisation of the Programme either from the side of the All Progressives Congress APC,or from the Peoples Democratic party PDP.
Barikor who disclosed this to Current matters in an interview on Sunday said the committee was not set up to serve the interest of any political party hence” We are not here to support any political party, members of this commitee are men and women of integrity and we were chosen based on integrity and we will not allow a 3 month Programme to jeopardise our integrity.There are ordinary Nigerians that do not belong to political parties and on daily basis they are going through the same challenges as politicians.The responsibility of every government is the welfare of the people.
According to him, poverty does not know political party especially those who are extremely poor,”If I go to the village now and I meet a woman who is hungry and I give her money to feed or whatever scenario that propelled me to give her money, she will not ask me which political party I come from, she will first of all tell me thank you that is what life is all about and this is what we must be concerned about “
Asked why the State government has withdrawn from the Programme, Barikor said
“It is unfortunate that the state government will want to withdraw,we would plead that they continue to be part of this Programme.But it is also important to say that this is a federal government Programme and we have a national assignment that would be delivered in honour of the President himself because this is a rare responsibility that has been given to us as Nigerians Out of over 200 million nigerians we were chosen to do this job,we would not let him down.”
Barikor explained that the works Programme is an intervention Programme dedicated to a social category of people such as the itinerant workers market women, bricklayers and artisans, people who on daily basis look for jobs to do to earn income.
The Programme which starts in October and ends in December by way of social intervention, aims to alleviate the impact of poverty and the Covid-19 pandemic. Beneficiaries he said will be paid N20.000.monthly to enable them rebuild their economy.
He said there are laid down guidelines for the programme which are product of interministerial meeting of about 8 ministries and so they came out with a lot of guidelines, and at the end of the day, we have slots that are designed for serving political leaders.” For example a Senator has 30 slots in every local government of his or her Senatorial District.The Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has 30 slots in each of the local government areas of the state ,The governor of the state has 40 slots in every local government area of his state while House of Representatives members have 25 slots in their constituencies and we are following the guideline and this is what the guidelines say .This is what you see any where in Nigeria “
Barikor further revealed the actual reason why the Rivers State government’s attempted to withdraw from the Programme saying it was informed by the request for personal slots made by the representative of the governor which was turned down by the commitee, because that was not what the guidelines say.
“A representative of the governor who is also an agent of the governor , wanted to have his own slot, but the Programme did not say that agents of the governor should have slots ,The Programme says he is coming to represent the governor and superintend over the totality of 920 slots in the 23 local government areas He is not entitled to another slot to be given to him by the commitee.Remember, the commitee is made up of 20 persons selected to represent different interest and the guideline does not give us the capacity us to do things haphazardly and that is one of the things he misunderstood”
The representative of the governor on the committee who is also the Special Adviser to the governor on NDDC matters,Erastus Awortu had cited politicisation of the Programme as reason for the government of the state to pull out.
The Special Public Works Programme is an initiative of the Buhari government which focused on empowering 1000 persons in every local governmen area of the country in a bid to ameliorating challenges of extreme poverty at the rural areas..
