“You Spoke Without Adequate Knowledge” – Presidency Fires Back At Aisha Buhari
The senior special assistant to the President Buhari on social investment, Maryam Uwais has declared that the federal government’s social investment programmes (SIP) has not failed.
Uwais said this in response to claims by Mrs Aisha Buhari, wife of the President who earlier submitted that the SIP had failed in the north. [READ HERE]
However, Uwais while speaking on Channels Television, said Mrs Buhari would have been able to track all beneficiaries of the project if she had access to available data, adding that 190,000 beneficiaries are currently being paid under the investment programmes.
The President’s wife had said;
“The SSA to the president on social investment is a lady from Kano and I’m sure that my husband decided to put somebody from Kano because of the population and political impact it made. I have never asked how the money is used or being given out.”
“I met one of the president’s aides on SIP once and he promised me that for my state (Adamawa), N10,000 each would be given to 30,000 women but up till now, I haven’t heard from him.”
But responding to the claims during the live TV programme on Monday, Uwais said:
“I believe that if she (Aisha) were to listen to the information they have there, if she were to check on our data, she would be able to track all the beneficiaries.
“Yes, she may not have met them. But we are in 12 local governments for the cash transfer. And we are also in 12 LGAs for the loans. So, I think we have at least 290,000 beneficiaries directly that we are paying in Adamawa state.”
Uwais added that the scheme is executing the school feeding programme in Adamawa state aside other activities and could do much more but for financial constraints.
“I’m saying that we have over 11,000 graduates recruited and working in her home state. We have non-graduates, 440; we started the school feeding programme in October 2018, we are in 1,054 public primary schools,” she said.
