Edo CAN admits ownership of controversial looted Rice in Benin

After accusations and counter-accusations between the Edo State Government and the State leadership of the All Progressives Congress, APC, over the ownership of looted rice in a truck parked at Urora, a suburb of Benin City, the state chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, has claimed ownership of the rice.

DAILY POST reports that the looting of the rice which was contained in a viral video, pitched the state government and APC against each other as they both traded words over the ownership of the product.

Claiming ownership of the looted rice, the State chairman of CAN, Irekpono Omoike, said the vandalized residence where bags of rice were looted by hoodlums in Urora is owned by a vendor contracted by the association’s implementation committee for the Christian Feeding Programme.

“There is a very important issue to correct a wrong notion that is circulating that the rice being distributed by the State Government is rice supplied by the Federal Government and re-bagged. This is misinformation. It is a very wrong notion that needs to be corrected.

“Earlier this year, the Edo State Chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria had a meeting with Governor Godwin Obaseki where he shared his concern on how to reach out to vulnerable persons and the poor who are bearing the hardship of the economic downturn in the country.

“After the meeting, an implementation committee for the Christian Feeding Programme was set up where we designed a programme on how to reach out to the poor with food palliatives. The governor released the 1st batch of the funding for the programme, which is N1 billion naira to purchase rice to be distributed.

“This was done and in May 2024 we flagged off the distribution of the first phase at the Baptist Convention Ground in Benin City”, he said.

Omoike noted that the Christian Feeding Programme which is in its second phase of distributing relief materials to vulnerable Christian Groups was funded by the Edo State Government with 2 billion naira.

He said in the First Phase of the Programme 60,000 bags of 10kg rice were distributed.

He gave the breakdown of the senatorial distribution as 27,000 bags for Edo South to be distributed to the seven Local Government Areas through the churches, 18,000 bags for Edo Northande 15,000 bags for Edo Central.

The CAN gave the total bags of rice distributed in the first batch as 60,000 bags of 10kg rice.

He added that for the second phase, another batch of N1 billion was released by the state government to replicate the exercise.

According to him, we purchased another consignment and distributed it through the structure of CAN. This process has been ongoing since July. In the last few days, we have successfully distributed to all the churches that did not receive the 1st batch across the 18 LGAs.

“In this batch, we were able to reach 56,250. There’s another consignment in this last phase, just as we did in the 1st phase, meant for churches not under C, since this was really done in partnership with CAN”, he added.

Earlier, the State Secretary of the CAN Implementation Committee for the Christian Feeding Programme, Osagie Ehrunmwunse, added that the truck in the viral video where bags of rice were looted belonged to a logistic company distributing the rice.

“The truck supplying down from Ekpoma had a breakdown the previous night. The rice was meant for the Seventh Day Adventist, Latter Day Saints, vulnerable children, orphanages, and widows among others.

“In an attempt for us to take that rice for safekeeping, that was when the products were looted by hoodlums. So that was exactly what happened on Thursday morning.

“Where the incident happened was not exactly a government warehouse. It is the house belonging to one of the suppliers of the rice for distribution.

“We are happy that nobody died in the process, or got injured. But as Mr Chairman said, it’s disheartening to know that people have to twist the information by saying it’s federal government rice”, he added.