Victims of the Calabar SPAR shopping mall fire will receive a N500 million presidential relief package, following an announcement by First Lady Senator Oluremi Tinubu on Thursday during a government event in Cross River State.
The relief package was disclosed at the South-South Zonal launch of the National Community Foodbank Programme, an event that brought both announcements together in Calabar, the state capital.
Mrs. Tinubu, who spoke at the event, confirmed that the foodbank initiative was designed as a response to food insecurity and malnutrition among vulnerable households across six South-South states.
Those states are Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo and Rivers. The programme specifically targets children under the age of six, pregnant women and lactating mothers across the region, with the foodbank centres embedded within existing health facilities to ensure they reach communities already accessing public health services.
Three foodbank centres were commissioned on Thursday. The first was launched at Edeba Primary Health Centre in Cross River, with two others at MCH Ikom in the Central and MCH Ogoja in the North activated at the same time.
The foodbank programme, Mrs. Tinubu told reporters, was inaugurated in Abuja on April 2, 2026. Since then, it has been rolled out across the North East, North West, North Central and South West zones before reaching the South-South, making Thursday’s event part of a coordinated national expansion that has now touched five of the country’s six geopolitical zones.
“This initiative aligns with the Renewed Hope Agenda of my husband, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu,” the First Lady said, “particularly its commitment to improving food security, strengthening health care outcomes and promoting the well-being of all Nigerians.”
Thursday’s South-South launch marks the fifth zonal phase of the programme. Cross River State now hosts three active foodbank points following the simultaneous commissioning of the Ikom and Ogoja centres alongside the Edeba facility.
The N500 million relief fund for Calabar mall fire victims was announced separately from the foodbank programme but at the same event. No further breakdown of how the funds would be distributed was provided in the official announcement.
The Calabar SPAR mall fire drew wide attention in the South-South, affecting traders and businesses that operated within the complex. The presidential relief package represents the federal government’s first publicly announced financial response to the incident, and comes amid continued pressure from affected business owners and residents for official support in the aftermath of the disaster.
No timeline was given, according to the announcement, for when the N500 million would be disbursed or which agency would oversee the distribution to affected victims and businesses.
The foodbank programme, Mrs. Tinubu confirmed at the briefing, targets the most nutritionally vulnerable populations. Children under six, pregnant women and lactating mothers form the primary beneficiary groups across all six South-South states covered by Thursday’s launch.
Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Delta, Edo and Rivers states will benefit alongside Cross River under the South-South phase, according to the statement from the First Lady’s office. The centres in those states were not individually named in Thursday’s announcement.
The initiative’s structure, as described by Mrs. Tinubu, is designed to be sustainable rather than a one-time intervention. Each foodbank point operates through an existing health facility, anchoring the food distribution to spaces already used by the target population.
Thursday’s event placed the Calabar mall fire relief and the foodbank launch side by side, a pairing that drew attention to both the immediate and longer-term needs of Cross River residents at the same public platform.
The N500 million Calabar mall fire relief remains the headline figure from the day’s announcements. For the hundreds of traders and workers who lost goods, equipment and income in that fire, the key question now is when, and through what process, the money will reach them.
