Folarin Kehinde

A cross-section of civil servants at the Federal Secretariat in Abuja on Thursday appealed to the President Bola Tinubu administration to create more platforms to ease the collection of its subsidised rice for workers.

The 50kg bags of rice are being sold at a flat rate of N40,000 each in furtherance of the Federal Government’s intervention to ameliorate the prevailing food crises in Nigeria.

Speaking during an interview, the workers said that the process of accessing the product had become cumbersome due to inadequate distribution points owing to the huge number of people turning out to benefit from the scheme.

One of them, Alex Luke, stated that the special intervention by the Federal Government was a welcome development as it’s aimed at easing the burden on Nigerians.

Mr Luke said that he was number 500 on the registration list as of Thursday morning and it took him two days to be able to write down his name on the lists.

He said, “The challenge here is that the registration and the collection points are not enough, compared to the number of workers here at the Secretariat and those who are coming from other government establishments.

“It would be brilliant if the organisers could create other platforms or different points for other MDAs to get the rice. I think it will make the process organised and coordinated.”

Also speaking, another civil servant, Eunice Linus, described the special intervention of providing rice at the rate of N40, 000 per bag as a good omen for the people as many of them would love to have them.

She, however, said it was unfortunate that the process of accessing the product “has become a big challenge as it is wasting the time workers are supposed to be using to work in their offices.”

She noted, “When I got to the office this morning, I went straight to this place to write my name, and I saw many people there and it has been like that since we started the scheme.

“You know, because rice is expensive at the market, workers in particular would not want to miss the opportunity to buy a bag at N40,000 here. But the process is time-wasting. I believe there is an easier way to organise this than this chaotic process.”

In her contribution, Aisha Umaru, who lauded the Federal Government for the initiative, suggested that admin officers from different ministries should be assigned to write the names of interested workers and submit the lists at points designated for the distribution or sale of the product.

She said, “I think it is a welcome idea, but we have not been finding it easy even to write our names, let alone collect the bags of rice. As you can see, the place is crowded, and it will get worse as more people are still coming to work. It will be very easy if different MDAs can assign officers from their offices to write the names of people and take them to collection points.”

On her part, Patience Yakubu, said the scheme might end up making many people commit their money only to end up not getting the products.

She stated, “You can imagine all of us that are working at the Federal Secretariat coming here and people from other places coming to queue up at the Head of Service for the collection of the rice.

“When would people finish writing their names and go back to work? It means we would use the whole day for this process which we are not even sure will succeed at the end of the day. There is a more organised way of making this a success if the government means well for us.”