CACOVID offers palliative to Nigerians through nationwide food intervention program

Following the impact of the coronavirus lockdown and movement restrictions in Nigeria, the private sector-led coalition against COVID-19 (CACOVID) has announced its plans to provide palliatives in the form of food items to millions of vulnerable families across the country.

Having spent over N16 billion of its donations on procuring essential medical resources to fight the pandemic, the coalition will begin distributing food items including rice, garri, beans, noodles, and more to reach at least 1.7 million families in need.

The intervention, which is positioned to aid the government in addressing hunger and other economic effects of the pandemic, will not hinder the coalition’s ongoing effort to contain the spread of the virus through the training of medical personnel, the establishment of isolation centres, procurement of medical kits, and so on.

In a media briefing, the Group Managing Director, Access Bank Plc, Herbert Wigwe explained the reason behind the food intervention programme. He said, “While several measures are being taken to stop the spread, including lockdowns, restrictions, physical as well as social distancing, there remains the need to address the issue of hunger. We need to cater to the feeding needs of the people if the preventive measures put in place are to be effective.”

According to Wigwe, CACOVID will be working closely with the 774 Local government areas across the country where partners of the Coalition will be assigned to deliver the relief materials to targeted households.
“The food is all packaged as we are rolling out 10kg bags of rice, 5kg bags of garri, two cartons of noodles, 3-5kg of sugar, 1kg bag of salt, and pasta per family. Hence, what we are doing is to get food right to the people who are in dire need at this time,” he said.

CACOVID continues to solicit the cooperation of capable institutions as it pursues its mandate of bringing an end to the pandemic in Nigeria.