Police arrest two suspects for looting bags of palliative rice in Edo

Police arrest two suspects for looting bags of palliative rice in Edo

The Edo State police have arrested two suspects in connection with the looting of ten-kilogram bags of palliative rice stored in a parked truck at Urora community in Ikpoba-Okha Local Government Area.

Edo Commissioner of Police, Funsho Adegboye, revealed this during a news briefing in Benin on Sunday, August 4, without providing further details.

On August 1, the first day of the nationwide protest tagged “#EndBadGovernance,” a 40-second viral video surfaced showing residents looting rice from a truck parked at a warehouse in Urora, with claims that the warehouse belonged to the Edo state government.

However, the Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Edo chapter, Dr. Irekpono Omoike, clarified at a news conference held at the Chancellery of the Catholic Archdiocese of Benin that the vandalized location where the rice was looted belonged to a vendor contracted by Edo CAN’s implementation committee for the Christian feeding program.

He explained that the second phase of the Christian feeding program, aimed at distributing relief materials to vulnerable Christian groups, was funded by the Edo state government with N2 billion.

Omoike said: “There is a very important issue to correct a wrong notion that is circulating that the rice being distributed by the Edo State government is rice supplied by the Federal Government and re-bagged. This is misinformation. It is a very wrong notion that needs to be corrected.

“Earlier this year, the Edo State chapter of CAN had a meeting with Governor Godwin Obaseki, where he shared his concern on how to reach out to vulnerable persons and the poor, who are bearing the hardship of the economic downturn in the country.

“After the meeting, an implementation committee for the Christian feeding programme was set up, where we designed a programme on how to reach out to the poor with food palliatives. The governor released the first batch of funding for the programme, which is N1 billion, to purchase rice to be distributed. This was done, and in May 2024, we kicked off the distribution of the first phase at the Baptist Convention Ground in Benin City, with the distribution of 60,000 bags of 10kg of rice.

“For the second phase, another batch of N1 billion was released by the Edo governor to replicate the exercise. We purchased another consignment and distributed it through the structure of CAN. This process has been ongoing since July. In the last few days, we have successfully distributed to all the churches that did not receive the first batch, across the 18 LGAs, and we were able to reach 56,250. There is another consignment in this second phase, just as we did in the first phase, meant for churches not under CAN since this was done in partnership with CAN.”

While also speaking, the Secretary of the CAN’s implementation committee for the Christian feeding programme, Rev. Osagie Ehrunmwunse, maintained that the truck in the viral video, where bags of rice were looted, belonged to a logistic company distributing the rice.

Ehrunmwunse noted that the truck that was supplying from Ekpoma had a breakdown the previous night, with the rice meant for the Seventh Day Adventist Church, Latter Day Saints, vulnerable children, orphanages, and widows, among others, while insisting that where the looting took place was not a government warehouse, but a house belonging to one of the suppliers of the rice for distribution.

Edo Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Jarret Tenebe, urged residents of the state to hold Obaseki responsible for the hardship in Edo.

Tenebe accused the Edo governor of diverting the Federal Government’s palliatives, which he insisted was responsible for hunger in the Southsouth state.

He accused Obaseki and his faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of frustrating the genuine efforts of the administration of President Bola Tinubu to considerably reduce the impact of economic hardship on Nigerians, especially in Edo state.

Edo chairman of APC said: “Obaseki has refused to acknowledge or give account of the various financial grants and other palliatives his administration has received from the Federal Government.

“Instead, Edo governor is struggling to blame his failure on his imaginary fictional story of plans by APC to attack government’s institutions in Edo State.”

Tenebe also urged Edo residents, especially the electorate, to massively vote on September 21 for the visionary governorship candidate of APC, Senator Monday Okpebholo, whom he said was more experienced than the standard bearer of PDP, Dr. Asue Ighodalo, for him (Okpebholo) to succeed Obaseki on November 12.