The President, who spoke in Abuja yesterday while receiving a parting donation of N12 billion security equipment for the Military and the Nigeria Police from the leadership of CACOVID said his government had received so much support from the private sector in addressing social ills in the country.

Items handed over to the President by the Coalition members included 100 Tata 14 ton Troop carriers, 100 Tata 12 ton Troop carriers, 86 Toyota pick-up trucks, 64 Nissan Navara pick-up trucks with their spare parts, 13,000 helmets as well as 13,000 bullet proof vests.

It would be recalled that the World Health Organisation (WHO) had also rated CACOVID as the third largest contributor in the world to the fight against Covid-19 virus, the outbreak of which in 2020 brought the world to its knees.

An excited President Buhari while thanking the CACOVID on behalf of the Military and the Police said: “Today is indeed a very happy day for all Nigerians, and I can happily say that I am the envy of many Presidents in the world. I am exceedingly honoured to be the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, at this time.

“I am gratified to have the honour of leading a country whose private sector willingly galvanises itself to raise funds to enthusiastically support government in resolving social ills. I am proud to say that there is nowhere in the entire world, except in Nigeria, where the private sector has voluntarily come together to assist government efforts.

“Thank you for supporting our Administration’s efforts to strengthen the Police and Military as we face the security challenges that all modern nations face”, Buhari added, noting that such a patriotic gesture was proof that nationalistic determination is still alive in Nigeria, in the face of enormous challenges pervading the world and the country.

Speaking while handing over the items, Chairman of the Aliko Dangote Foundation (ADF), Aliko Dangote, a foremost industrialist who initiated the Coalition with the Group Managing Director of Access Bank Plc, Herbert Wigwe, explained that the Coalition was winding down with the latest donation.

He listed other business leaders brought together under CACOVID to include Mrs. Folorunsho Alakija, Tony Elumelu, Jim Ovia, Segun Agbaje, Abdulsamad Rabiu, Femi Otedola, Adesola Adedotun, Karl Toriola, Haresh Aswani, Raj Gupta, and John Coumantaros, all of who contributed several billions of Naira each and supported the CACOVID effort with advocacy. In all, according to him, over 100 organisations and private individuals contributed to CACOVID.

Mr. Dangote gave reason for the donation saying that as the worst of the Covid crisis waned in Nigeria, the security situation deteriorated, partly due to economic disruptions caused by the shutdown of the global and national economy.
Therefore, to provide additional response support to the Government, the ADF Chairman said CACOVID embarked on another fundraising effort, which enabled it to purchase the items for the Police and the Military.

Recalling the birth of CACOVID, Dangote explained that the Coalition as a timely response to the outbreak of the deadly covid-19 virus was borne out of the previous experience with Ebola elsewhere in West Africa, which made him to recognise the fact that the potential crisis looming was very serious

“And so together with Herbert Wigwe, we set up CACOVID and drafted our peers in the private sector to join our efforts. The CBN Governor joined our efforts very early and chaired the group. We knew straight away that we had a responsibility to act and support the efforts of Government as quickly as possible to avert disaster”, Dangote noted.

Dangote continued; “In addition to the leadership team, we set up a technical committee to guide our purchasing decisions, which was critical, given the prevailing confusion around testing and treatment options, and the lack of successful models anywhere in the world. Members of that committee included leading Nigerian scientists and public health professionals, the DG of NCDC, DG of the Presidential Task force on Covid-19, representatives of WHO, BMGF and the UN.

“In addition, a core team of select staff members from our organisations manned the initiative’s operations Centre 7 days a week for several months planning, coordinating, and delivering on the various activities of the coalition.”

While enumerating all the supports the Coalition has offered the nation in the last two years, Dangote disclosed that the group mobilised its members and raised N62 billion to provide 39 fully kitted isolation centers in all 36 States and FCT; Testing Supplies for almost 1 million tests; Food for 10 million vulnerable individuals across the country; Oxygen and tanks to the most affected states; Support for vaccines delivery and distribution across the Nation; Support to re-open the economy (Travel Portal, IT, airport scanners/PPE and other support) with communications and advocacy campaigns around prevention and against disinformation.

According to Dangote, the donation marks the end of the CACOVID initiative “as we wind down what has been deemed an example of patriotism, solidarity and efficiency in terms of partnership between the public and private sectors. This is a lesson in the power of collaboration for a worthy cause.

“Thank you to my partners on this CACOVID journey. I would like to especially thank the Presidential Covid-19 team led by SGF Mr. Boss Mustapha for their excellent collaboration. My gratitude goes to Mr. President for your unwavering support and that of your entire Government.”

Also speaking on the activities of CACOVID, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, Central Bank Governor, who led the CACOVID Committee told the President he was proud to be part of the Coalition that supported government in its fight against insecurity.

“I am immensely gratified by what CACOVID has achieved in its few years of existence. The nationalist and patriotic drive of my colleagues therein is unmatched anywhere in the world and must be applauded. The Coalition is a good example of what Nigeria must become: a nation of patriotic solidarity of individuals and corporations, and effective collaboration of the public and private sectors,” he said.

The post Interventions: Buhari Hails CACOVID For Raising His Profile Among Comity Of Nations appeared first on Business News in Nigeria.

As reported on Unmask NG, between October 20 and Friday, October 23, while some stores were looted, government properties and individually-owned buildings, were set ablaze by miscreants who hijacked the nationwide peaceful protest against police brutality in Nigeria.

With many business owners losing their investment and survival means, Emefiele stated that the private sectors who formed the Coalition Against COVID-19 (CACOVID), will draft up a blueprint that will lead to the support of businesses and households affected.

He said: “Our youths have immense potential, energetic and if well-handled can catapult our nation to the forefront of leading nations in the world. “We must, therefore, seek to promote increasing policies that will equip our youths in the right skills that will support innovation, employment and wealth creation.

“It is in this light that key stakeholders in the Nigerian private sector came together under the auspices of CACOVID to brainstorm of the ways to prevent the effect of the recent unrest from eroding confidence in our economy.

“I am pleased to note that the CACOVID alliance will, over the next week, be unveiling a blueprint that will provide details of our planned support that positively affect households and businesses.

“This is in addition to measures that will create millions of jobs for our youths over the next five years. Many parts of the country were affected by the unrest but Lagos remains the worst hit.”

The central bank governor added that the businesses will be at the focal point of CACOVID in the coming weeks.

The post #EndSARS: CBN Discloses Plan To Help Affected Business Owners appeared first on Business News in Nigeria.

According to him, one of the perspectives is human impact, and the other, economic impact.

His words: “For us here in Nigeria, mostly in Africa, the COVID-19 is really an eye-opener because when you look at it, we have two impacts. One is the human impact, the other one is the economy.

 “One, I think in Africa, most of it is actually the economic impact, because what you have done at the beginning, we shut down all our activities, we shut down the airports. So when you look at the economic impact for us, it is huge. But the human impact, we as at today we have about 65,000 cases, thereabouts in Nigeria, and we have 1,165 deaths.”

While making effort to stemming the spread of the coronavirus, Dangote launched a coalition of private sector organizations to support the country. The initiative involved the set up of fully-equipped medical tents to be used for housing patients as well as serve as training, testing, isolation and treatment centers.

He said: “Because of the economic impact, a lot of people couldn’t really go out to make their livelihood. So what we did, we have this Coalition against COVID-19 of which I actually mobilized the private sector and we raise the sum of $112 million dollars. And what we did was now to go all out and set up 39 isolation centers, of which the smallest one is 100 beds and biggest ones are 200 beds. And they have ventilators which we bought; they have all the equipment.

“And then we also said, what do we do about these isolation centers? Now people were not able to afford money to eat. So what we did, we went out and we bought food for 10 million people, which is five per cent of the population; thus people at the bottom of the pyramid. And what we did, we took 10 million people and we said, this 10 million people, it means that you have minimum of 1.7 million households. And we gave them food and we distributed. So that will actually reduce the effect of the lockdown. So that’s what we did”.

To this effect, he urged all operators in the private sector to commit one per cent of their profits to fund the health sector challenges in Nigeria, to enable the country tackle crisis like the coronavirus pandemic successfully.

The post How COVID-19 Impacted Africa- Dangote appeared first on Business News in Nigeria.

The source insisted that the incident happened in the state and also that the CACOVID food palliatives were left unattended in the warehouse.

Recall that the Kogi state governor said his administration did not hoard CACOVID relief packages, and that news reports claiming that the warehouse that stored the items was looted, were completely false.

He also stated that his administration had been distributing palliatives to cushion the effect of the infectious disease, even before CACOVID commenced help to other states.

However, contrary to what the governor said on the national TV, the source insisted that the state government took early delivery of the palliatives and refused to distribute to the people for reasons best known to them. A document, made available to our correspondent, showed that the food items were left unattended when the looters vandalised the warehouse.

Each household is supposed to receive a bundle containing 10kg bag of rice, 5kg bag of garri/semolina, one carton of pasta, two cartons of noodles, 5kg of sugar, and 1kg of salt.

Another document also showed that as of Tuesday, July 21, 2020, CACOVID had completed the delivery of noodles and some other items to the Kogi State government.

It was gathered that 90% of the expected food palliatives totalling 238,000 packages, which include – rice, pasta, noodles, semo/maize, salt, and sugar have all been delivered to the state government, according to the documents. The value of the food palliatives collected by the Kogi State government was put at N531 million.

Though the governor alleged, during the interview that COVID-19 is political, sources within the government however revealed that many isolation centres had been set up in the State as of Friday, May 22, with the full cooperation of the state government.

Commenting on the looted COVID-19 palliatives warehouse in Kogi State, Adeyinka Akagba, a civil servant said: “The Governor was just not fair to the people. He should have distributed the palliatives immediately it was delivered to him, rather than keep them in a very bad warehouse…The most painful part of it was the fact that the palliatives were fed to rodents instead of Kogi people, who were keen on getting the palliatives to cushion the effects of the COVID-19 lockdown.”

The post Looted Kogi COVID-19 Palliatives: Many Lies of Yahaya Bello appeared first on Business News in Nigeria.

As seen on multiple news reports, miscreants across Nigeria have been discovering and looting the palliatives meant for distribution to cushion the effect of COVID-19 infectious disease.

But reacting to the looting trend, CACOVID expressed deep concern, urging looters and arsonists to immediately desist from their actions in order to allow the state governments to proceed with the peaceful and fair distribution of these palliatives to the neediest and most vulnerable in our society.

Over the past few months, the Private Sector through CACOVID has been working with all State Governors, the FCT Minister, and the Nigerian Governors’ Forum to procure, deliver and distribute these food relief items to almost 2 million most vulnerable families (over 10 million Nigerians) across the 774 LGAs in the country, as part of the private sector’s support to the national response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The sheer scale of this nationwide food programme and the timing of the orders and deliveries, which coincided with the lockdowns and reduced movement across the country, complelled CACOVID to roll out distribution in a staggered manner, with States classified in three timed phases, to enable orderly delivery to the needy.

At the time CACOVID embarked on the palliatives effort in April, we decided to procure the food directly from the manufacturers, to avoid a distortion of prices in the market. The food package was designed such that each of the nearly 2 million vulnerable families received: 10kg bag or rice, 5kg bag of garri/maize flour/semolina, 1 carton of pasta, 2 cartons of noodles, 5kg of sugar and 1kg of salt.

Unfortunately, the very large size of the order, and the production cycle required to meet the demand, caused delays in delivering the food items to the States in an expeditious manner; hence the resulting delay in delivery of the food palliatives by the State Governors.

For instance, Rice had to be milled, semolina and maize flour had to be processed, noodles and pasta had to be manufactured, and sugar had to be refined.

As Such, the first deliveries could not start until June. However, as of October 2020, a sizable portion of the items had been delivered but yet to be distributed by the Governors. Although various States and FCT had commenced flag-off of the distribution of the food items since early August. Some could not conclude the distribution as they were yet to receive complete deliveries of the items allotted to them. In the interest of transparency and accountability, CACOVID will, in due course be providing the full delivery schedule and flag-off dates by each state.

Prior to these events, CACOVID had worked with the States through the Nigerian Governors’ Forum to determine:
i. the number of households per State;
ii. The States and FCT to provide clean and secure warehousing for the food;
iii. The composition of the State and Local Government Committees (including CSOs, religious organisations, LGA Chairpersons, Ward Leaders, media representatives, security services, CACOVID representatives); and
iv. Clear distribution guildelines to ensure equitable distribution of the food amongst the neediest.

Given that the States and Local Government authorities oversee all relief efforts in their jurisdictions and know their citizens best, we had worked with each Governor and Minister of the FCT, utilizing a combination of our protocols and their existing structures and processes to ensure food items reach the intended beneficiaries. We also appointed an independent monitoring team to ensure that the items would be delivered as intended.

We are aware that official flagging-off and handover of the palliatives has taken place in 28 states and FCT, and State governments have been distributing at various paces. As of today, October 26^th, 202, some States have confirmed completion of their distribution while others were in the process of proceeding with the distribution before these looting took place. By these looting incidents, it there meant that some intended beneficiaries had been deprived the opportunity of benefitting from CACOVID’s good intentions.

In line with our earlier promise, KPMG Professional Services, our external auditors are at the verge of completing the audit of all contributions from our donors; as well as listing of all medical and food items procured with these funds. We will be sharing the external audit reports of our spending, alongside a full report of CACOVID activities, including delivery and planned flag-off dates of our donations to Nigerians.

It is very unfortunate that various States, including States that have concluded the distribution of their allocations, are seeing theier warehouses and other premises being raided. It must also be noted that not every warehouse in Nigeria that contains palliatives is affiliated with the CACOVID donation, given that the States themelves, the Federal Government and other organisations have also made donations.

In light of these unsavoury developments, we would like to appeal for calm, and for States to be allowed to proceed with their palliatives distributions peacefully, even as each State will undoubtedly keep its citizens abreast of the distribution process to ensure transparency, accountability, and equity.

The Coalition disavows, and urges the public to disregard, any unauthorized sources of information regarding the current issue.

CACOVID confirms this platform as the only one authorized to communicate on behalf of the group.

The post CACOVID Sues For Calm Over Looted COVID-19 Palliative Warehouses appeared first on Business News in Nigeria.