Details of President Mohammadu Buhari’s social protection programme are emerging with disclosures yesterday that one million artisans and market women will each get soft loans of N60, 000.
To co-ordinate the Social Protection Programme, presidency sources said, a Special Adviser has been named in the person of Mrs Maryam Uwais, a lawyer who was a Principal Partner of Wali Uwais & Co, an Abuja-based law firm.
She is to work with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on the president’s pet project.
Details of the distribution method were sketchy yesterday evening but a senior top government adviser revealed that they are part of budget proposals going to the National Assembly.
The micro-credit component is one of a six-point social protection programme of the administration, that will require the approval of the National Assembly approval to become part of the budget.
The programme is to be co-ordinated by a Special Adviser for Social Protection Plan in the presidency,, but it will involve several federal ministries.
According to the official, they are: the Teach Nigeria Scheme, where the government plans to directly hire 500,000 graduates as teachers ; the Youth Employment Agency:where between 300,000 to 500,000 non graduate youths would be taken through skill acquisition programmes and vocational training, for which they would be paid stipends during the training.
There is also the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) where government ;the Homegrown School Feeding and the Free Education Scheme.
On the payment of N5,000 to one million Nigerians, the presidency source recalled that the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, had explained that such cash transfers would enable those extremely poor Nigerians “to live decently.”
According to him, “this is the most misunderstood of the schemes” adding that it would only be for extremely poor people based on “a set of criteria that is being determined including the use of social registers which the president announced during the budget speech as being currently compiled.
The World Bank is working with the Federal Government on some of this programmes including the CCT.
