The President's wife, Aisha Buhari, has criticized the Social
Investment Programme of the Federal Government, she said "the programme
has failed to achieve its aim in Kano and most parts of Northern
Nigeria".Mrs Aisha Buhari stated this at the interactive session with women as part of the presidential inauguration ceremony at the State House in Abuja.
The wife of the President, who specifically mentioned the conditional cash transfer component, questioned the method used in executing the programme.
She also faulted the amount of money spent on the purchase of mosquito nets.
“They have spent $16 million buying mosquito nets. I did not get it, but maybe some people have gotten it. But I feel that, as my personal opinion, $16 million is enough to fumigate Nigeria,” she said.
Generally, Mrs Aisha Buhari did not agree with the method adopted for the programme.
She said, “I was expecting the social investment programme, N500 billion to be utilized in a different method; in order to achieve the aim. But I don’t know the method they used. Most of the Northern States did not get the money. I don’t know – my state didn’t get the money. I don’t know if your state got the money.”
Continuing with her criticism, Mrs Buhari explained that the programme worked well in some state and that for other states where it did not succeed, a different approach should have been used.
She added, “In my state, one local government benefited from it, out of 22 local governments. I didn’t’ ask what happened and I don’t want to know.”
Although the wife of the President is concerned about the performance of the programme in her state, she suggested it was worse in Kano.
“For it to fail woefully in Kano is not a good sign,” she said
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