President Muhammadu Buhari’s wife, Aisha, has said that the N500 billion Social Investment Programme (SIP) of her husband’s administration failed woefully particularly in the north.
The Adamawa State-born wife of the president made the declaration in Abuja during an interactive session with women in the Presidential Villa.
She said the implementation of the programme in her home state was abysmally poor.
Mrs. Buhari said only one of the existing 22 local governments in Adamawa State had so far benefitted from the programme.
She alleged that the promise made to her by an aide of the president that N30, 000 women in Adamawa State would be given N10, 000 had remained a farce as the promise is never fulfilled.
She also cited Kano, a highly-populated northern state, as another example where she believed the programme failed, despite the huge funds the federal government budgeted for it.
She stressed that although the manager of the programme, Mrs. Maryam Uwais, who is a senior special assistant to the president on Social Investment Programme (SIP), hails from Kano State, the programme is also a failure in her state.
Mrs. Buhari said she had kept quiet before now to avoid being accused of raising alarm queried how the N500 billion budgeted for the programme was being spent.
She also said the conditional cash transfer arm of the programme was not getting to the target beneficiaries as promised by the All Progressives Congress (APC) during its electioneering.
“Concerning the N500bn voted for SIP, that was part of 2015 campaigns where they promised to give out N10, 000, feed pupils in primary schools and give N5,000 to the poorest of the poorer.
“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 being used or is being given out.
“I met barrister (one of the president’s aides on SIP) once and he promised me that for my state (Adamawa), we should get 30,000 women to be given N10, 000. Up till now, I haven’t heard from him.
“I don’t want to raise alarm that my state does not benefit from it – where secretary to the government of the federation came from – I kept quiet because I don’t want people to say that I talk too much. “Recently, I saw a 74-year-old man selling petty things in Kano. I asked him how much his capital is. He told me between N3,000 and N4,000. Don’t forget that we have campaigned to give the poorest of the poor, N5,000 every month.
“So I don’t know where the social investment.. Maybe, it worked out in some states. In my own state, only a local government benefited out of the 22. I didn’t ask what happened and I don’t want to know but for it to fail woefully in Kano, it’s not a good sign and it’s not a good thing.
“We have a lot of women that do business locally. Due to the cultural thing in the North, they are at home doing their businesses. Some are millionaires. Some have thousands of naira. They need the assistance but they do not get it. Most Northern women do not belong to any market association
“I was expecting that N500 billion to be utilised in different methods in the north for the aim to be achieved. I don’t know the method they used but most of the northern states do not get it. My states do not get.”
“How many of you (women in the hall) get it in your state? My state did not benefit from it,” she said.
She said the method employed in implementing the programme in the North was faulty, a reason she believed it failed there.
“It worked out well in a situation whereby they have market associations but I was thinking different methods should be used in the North,” she said.
Mrs. Buhari also criticised the $16 million counterpart fund said to have been used so far on procurement of mosquito nets.
“I have heard about mosquito nets, Nigeria paid its counterpart fund, $16m. I asked them to give my own share of the net to send it to my village people. I didn’t get it.
“They have spent $16 million in buying mosquito nets, I did not get it, maybe some people have got it. But I feel that, that’s my personal opinion, $16m is enough to fumigate mosquitoes in Nigeria. That’s my opinion,” she added.
