Dr Sulaiman Olanrewaju was the group business editor at The Nigerian Tribune before he was appointed as the media aide to Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State. He is an experienced and a reputable journalist who knows his onions. It is not a child’s play to be the group business editor of the longest surviving national newspaper in Nigeria. Therefore, it is not a hogwash to conclude that Dr Sulaiman Olanrewaju is one of the finest journalists in Nigeria.
However, a development happened recently that suggested that Dr Olanrewaju must have misread what his principal, Governor Seyi Makinde stands for or the meaning of palliative was lost on him. At a 3-day Retreat organised for the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Press Corps, Dr Olanrewaju was quoted to have said that his principal, Governor Seyi Makinde, did not believe in palliative. These were his words:
“In Oyo State, we don’t believe in palliatives, because they are a placebo. What we do is to look at the root cause and address the challenges head on.
“When this economic hardship started, the governor did not give palliatives as some states did. All we did was to sit down and examine the causes of the problems and we addressed them.
“What were the issues? Food prices were going up and people were finding it difficult to move about. The governor came up with the Sustainable Action for Economic Recovery (SAfER), and under that programme the state planned to increase food production by giving support to farmers.”
Contrary to the claim by Dr Olanrewaju, Governor Seyi Makinde was a believer of palliative as a private citizen and is a proponent of palliative as a governor. As a private citizen, Governor Seyi Makinde, when he was aspiring to contest for governorship was everywhere where disasters happened, doling out palliative to victims, giving Oyo people the impression that he had milk of human kindness flowing abundantly in his veins. As a governor, Makinde has doled out palliative in the wake of some challenges that the country faced.
In 2020, Governor Makinde gave out cash palliative to the owner and the occupants of a shopping complex razed by fire at Dugbe. The cash palliative was meant to give temporary relief to the victims as the amount given them could neither build another shopping complex nor restocked goods worth billions of naira lost to the inferno.
In August 2023, Governor Makinde gave out items such as garri (5kg), beans (5kg) and a litre of vegetable oil to 200,000 households in Oyo State as palliative to cushion the effects of high cost of food items. As a result of the removal of fuel subsidy by the immediate past administration of Muhammadu Buhari and which the current administration of President Bola Tinubu proclaimed, Governor Seyi Makinde gave wage awards of 25,000 naira to Oyo workers and 15,000 naira to Oyo pensioners for six months until permanent solution of minimum wage increase would be resolved. Governor Makinde recently constituted a committee to review minimum wage and to make recommendations. He announced the continuation of the wage awards for another three months. Is wage award not another name for palliative?
The Federal Government of Nigeria led by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been reported to have given funds, food items and 20 CNG vehicles to each state of the federation as palliative to cushion the effects of the current hardship being faced by the people. Governor Makinde, whom his media aide said does not believe in palliative, is not reported to have rejected cash and material palliative distributed to states by the federal government.
Dr Olanrewaju claimed that “When this economic hardship started, the governor did not give palliative as some states did. All we did was to sit down and examine the causes of the problem and we addressed them”. I may well ask the media aide, ‘What problems and their causes were addressed?’ If it is about rising cost of food items, do they need to be told that prices of food items in Oyo State are crazingly high? There has been no intervention from the government to bail Oyo masses out from the shackles of shylock traders who increase prices of items as they desire. When will the acclaimed agricultural interventions, ₦1 billion to farmers and ₦1 billion to SMEs for economic recovery begin to make positive impacts to bring down prices of food items, especially?
There is nothing wrong in giving palliative to citizens to be able to cope temporarily with pains of economic reforms. Yes, completely roast dog is sweet but something edible has to sooth the throat before dog is adequately roasted.
Maroof Asudemade, an Editorial Consultant and Book Publisher, writes from Ibadan
