Governor Mohammed Bago of Niger State | File Image
‘Ramadan feeding centres have been set up in all the eight Emirate Councils with the Emirs as the Coordinators’
By Mohammed Usman
Niger State government has declared a five-day holiday with effect from Monday March 18, 2024, to enable civil servants and political officeholders participate in the monitoring and distribution of palliatives/ Ramadan free feeding across the 25 local government areas.
This is coming on the heels of the appeal by Christians to the state government to desist from adopting a divide and rule policy that would set one religion against others, stressing, ‘‘every Nigerlite, irrespective of religious inclination, voted in the election that saw to the emergence of Governor Mohammed Umar Bago.”
Niger State Commissioner of Information and Strategy, Hajiya Binta Mamman, had in a statement signed by her, gave details of quantities of palliatives and Ramadan fast free feeding to be conducted across the 25 councils.
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The Commissioner, who thanked Governor Bago, for making funds available to alleviate the sufferings of Nigerlites said, “Ramadan feeding centres have been set up in all the eight Emirate Councils with the Emirs as the Coordinators”.
The Commissioner, while appealing to the Civil Servants and Political office holders to see the task as a call for service to humanity, urged Nigerlites to cooperate with the officials and to be orderly at all distribution and feeding points for smooth, successful exercise.
Meanwhile, the Commissioner did not mention what Christians in the state who started fasting (Lenten season) before the Moslems, would get and/or if the palliatives were meant for Moslems alone or for every citizen of the state to avoid crisis.
Some Christians who spoke on the issue are of the views that the state government should have clearly stated if the palliatives were for every citizen without necessarily attaching religious fasting to it because both Christians and Moslems observe fasting though at slightly different occasions and season.
Nuhu Theodore, a Christian argued that Governor Mohammed Umar Bago, whom he described as a detrabalised person, knows very much about Christian Lenten season involving fasting, hence the handlers of the welfare package should have been more careful attaching certain acronyms when sharing what collectively belongs to every Nigerlite.
