Gombe state Chairman of the Joint association of people living with disabilities, Yunusa Adamu Gombe has lamented politicization in the distribution of palliatives in the state.
Speaking to WikkiTimes on Thursday, Adamu said the state government has done a good gesture last year August when they were inaugurating people living with disabilities in the state committee for palliative distribution.
However, he decried that leaving it up to polling unit leaders to select the beneficiaries of the palliative has brought the PWDs to a disadvantage.
He said: “We cannot entirely say that we have not benefitted from the palliative. But our challenge at the moment is how the government leaves it up to polling unit leaders to distribute it. So, they misuse the opportunity and omit PWDs most of the time because they are politicians with biased selection process.
“This has rendered our inclusion into the committee not entirely useful because we when our people hear that food has been distributed and they didn’t get any, they feel excluded.
“Before the last palliative distribution last week, we had to meet the Governor to complain about the distribution pattern and we were lucky to have secured our share through the association. So we distributed it to our various local government charimen of associations and it got directly to our people.”
While commending the Governor for the initiative, he added that if this procedure is maintained, PWDs will benefit more from the relief materials.
“This time around, about 400 PWDs benefited from the palliative in Gombe metropolis alone which included Sorghum, Rice and Spaghetti. As for other local governments across the states, our charimen collected their share and distributed to the people,” he narrated.
While calling on the government to consider increasing their share in the subsequent distribution, Adamu noted it is not possible for everyone to benefit from the relief materials due to the population.
