Kwara State Governor, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq has announced a N500 million fund to assist people whose businesses were looted by hoodlums on Friday in Ilorin, the state capital, as part of his administration’s efforts to get them back onto their feet following the incident.
AbdulRazaq, during a visit to the Kwara Mall and Agro Mall, condemned the dastardly incident, noting that it was capable of bringing businesses to their knees, and cause massive loss of jobs and a surge in poverty rate. These implications, he lamented, were clearly lost on the hoodlums.
“We are therefore not going to leave the business owners like that. We are setting up a N500 million fund for those that were affected to access. The application form is live and active on the State Government’s website and can now be filled by interested parties. We are going to get them back as soon as possible,” he said.
Claims that government was hoarding palliatives were false as it was not the owner of those materials, AbdulRazaq added, explaining that the food stuffs stolen at the Cargo Terminal were donated to specific vulnerable households and were being distributed across the state on behalf of the private sector-led CACOVID Foundation.
He added that the ones carted away from Agro-Mall were relief materials donated to specific victims of the recent rainstorms and floods in eight local government areas of the state by the Federal Government. He said the NEMA had already distributed the materials to at least four local governments while consignments for the remaining council areas were due for dispatch when the hoodlums struck.