The Lagos State Government said it has distributed more emergency food response stimulus packages to residents in the Ajegunle area of the state.
The state Commissioner for Information, Gbenga Omotosho, stated that no fewer than 100 bags of the food packages were distributed to the residents; Ajewole Street after some of them had complained of not receiving the food packages during the first phase.
Omotosho, who noted that the food packages, which contained 5 kilogrammes of rice, 5kg of garri, 3kg of beans, seasoning, as well as tomato and pepper mix, were aimed at reaching out to households while giving preference to the aged, vulnerable and indigent, said the packages would feed a family of six for two weeks.
He said, “This is something that started as soon as the Federal Government announced this lockdown. The governor said the poor people in our society shouldn’t be left to their own devices and he said the state government was going to package food to give to the poor, the poorest of the poor who are at the lowest rung of the ladder and we have been doing that.”
The commissioner further said over 350 persons had been engaged in different sections of the food distribution chains.
He said, “Many young Nigerians have been engaged by the COVID-19 Emergency Food Response Initiative coordinated by the Ministry of Agriculture to repack food items into smaller units for distribution.
“The first phase of this programme was supposed to cater to 200,000 households; we have crossed that and we have moved on to specialised areas, groups such as the physically challenged people whose data we have through our Office of Disability Affairs. We have moved to societies such as village groups, town groups, ethnic groups all over the place; we have moved to artisans such as carpentry associations and even transport unions.”