The Presidency on Tuesday assured Nigerians that would-be beneficiaries of the social protection programmes promised by President Muhammadu Buhari, would not be selected based on political affiliation.
The Senior Special Assistant to the Vice President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Laolu Akande, gave the assurance in an interview with State House correspondents at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Akande said since Buhari was the President of Nigeria and not of the All Progressives Congress alone, the present administration had put measures in place to ensure that diligent efforts were made to develop objective criteria to select the beneficiaries.
He also said since the government in place was that of change, Nigerians should expect fairness in the selection process, stressing that the selection could not be based on political consideration since the APC did not control all the states.
Akande said, “The President is the President of the nation and not of a particular political party.
“Diligent efforts are being made to ensure that the government develops objective criteria for the programmes.
“We have decided that the beneficiaries will be picked per state and you are aware that the APC does not control all the states of the federation.
“Each state will have its quota. We are committed to a fair and even distribution that is not based on political consideration. We do not play around change. Nigerians expect fairness in the exercise and they will get it”.
Akande reiterated the Presidency’s position that the social protection plan had been segmented into six plans that consist of Teach Nigeria, youth empowerment programme, conditional cash transfer, home-grown school feeding programme, free education for science, technology, engineering and mathematics students in tertiary institutions and the micro-credit scheme.
He explained that under the Teach Nigeria scheme, 500,000 graduate teachers would be hired, trained and deployed in public schools by the Federal Government.
He stated that provision had been made for the training of young people that were not graduates in skill acquisition under the youth empowerment scheme.
Under the conditional cash transfer programme, which, according to him, is for the extremely poor and vulnerable Nigerians, the VP’s spokesman said N5,000 would be paid monthly to one million Nigerians.
He added that one decent and nutritious meal per day would be provided for primary school pupils.
He said the Federal Government decided to make the feeding programme home-grown to avoid the mistake of the past administration.
Under the micro credit scheme, Akande said in addition to the N200bn set aside by the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Federal Government would give N60bn loan to one million artisans and market women and men.
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