Legislative members of the National Assembly and officials in the presidency may have been set for a rare public spat since the second term of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration began in May 2019.
Less than 24 hours after Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo state criticized the modalities for accessing the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) relief funds set up by the federal government, statements from the Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, and the House Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, revealed that they are out to vet the cash relief effort by the presidency.
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At a private session in the National Assembly, the top legislative officials in the country interrogated the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Sadiya Farouq, on what the criteria for qualifying for the Social Investment Programme (SIP) entails, among other questions. But the minister could not provide a coherent response.
The Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programme being run by the Federal Government (FG) was reportedly suspended this year for review. Since the economic collapse ensuing from the Coronavirus pandemic demanded urgent revival, the programme had to be restarted again to provide financial relief to the poorest in the society.
As many Nigerians have found themselves without any financial cushion to sail through the times, they have began to seriously question more FG run schemes such as the CCT, how other relief programmes are being run and where the monies went to. It must have been the cry of the average Nigerian that the money is not getting to the right places where they are mostly needed that prompted the legislators to demand for a situation report of the scheme.
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Before a new ministry was created to handle the CCT scheme and the N-Power programme which employs Nigerian graduates in different areas of discipline, the Social Investment Programme (SIP) was being managed by the Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Social Investments, Maryam Uwais, under the supervision of the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo. But in a move which many consider to be controversial, it was moved away from the purview of Osinbajo to a new Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs in late 2019 when new ministers were assigned to their portfolios.
It was evident in a video shared by the Speaker, Gbajabiamila that the minister is still struggling to catch up with the details of the scheme as it was run in the past. This purportedly led to such publicised gaffes as sharing cash equivalent of N20,000 of the FG relief funds to the beneficiaries of the scheme in some parts of the country without recourse to due process. Some pundits have posited that such a scheme should already have the bank details of the poor Nigerian beneficiaries over the 5 year period which the CCT scheme has been run, into which the funds can be transferred.
The previous manager of the SIP scheme, Maryam Uwais, has since yesterday equally published a scathing rebuttal of the public’s calls for the CCT programme to be audited and overhauled. She even counter-accused lawmakers of wanting to slot their own preferred names into the controversial list of beneficiaries of the SIP scheme in general.
Nonetheless, Nigerians are awaiting the results of the review process which the lawmakers and the minister Sadiya Farouq agreed on. If it is such a controversy in a dire time as the coronavirus period which will force the hands of public officials and servants to be accountable to the people, then the people are very much open for that debate. Anything less than that can only be considered fraudulent from the people put in charge of our scant national resources.
Featured Image Source: The Sun NG
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