The Benue State government has said that some of the palliative items meant for the state, which were recently discovered in Kano State were those that the state government distributed to traders in Makurdi markets, who in turn diverted them to Kano for sale.

The State’s Commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism, Mrs Ngunan Addingi, disclosed this to journalists in Makurdi
on Tuesday.

Mrs. Adingi, who was in company of the State’s Security Adviser, Col. Paul Hemba, said the position of the state government was based on police investigations.

According to Mrs. Adingi, the findings the state government got from the police indicated that one Alhaji Yusuf Abdullahi, who is Chairman of the Wurukum Traders Association and a few others were responsible for the palliatives diversion to Kano.

She disclosed further that the said chairman of the Wurukum Traders Association, Alhaji Yusuf Abdullahi, was even arrested in Kano State.

In her words, “Today the Executive Council met and we had some deliberations and one of the issues we find necessary to clarify is that there is a video trending on facebook and other platforms that is about palliatives that had been given to Benue State but were sold in Kano.

“I wish to say that this matter is not a matter that happened in October. It is a matter that when the CACOVID palliatives distributions were given, the committee had met and decided that some of the market people and traders that were also affected by not being able to open their stalls for a long time should be beneficiaries of these materials and so the markets association was invited when they were sharing palliatives and some palliative were also shared to them. And that is how some of the palliatives got to the market people.

“However we heard (and the security adviser is here to talk about the matter) that the chairman of the market association had collected those items and unfortunately sold them. As a matter of fact, the matter has been investigated and he was even arrested in Kano,” Mrs. Adingi explained.

While also responding, the State Security Adviser, Col. Paul Hemba, said the Police in Benue State have also been involved in the investigation, with a promise to brief the people of the state accordingly, after investigations into the matter have been concluded.