The Presidency has listed Nigerians that will forever remember and miss the good work President Muhammadu has done in their lives as he prepares to leave office in three weeks time.
In a statement today, May 3, reacting to the PUNCH newspaper editorial’s negative narrative of the Buhari’s eight year government, his spokesperson, Malam Harba Shehu accused the newspaper of living in denial.
“The editorial states that Buhari will not be missed. We shall see. But, countless Nigerians whose futures he has improved, will fondly remember him for good.
“Among these, to take just one aspect or two- the two million poor and vulnerable Nigerian households that are currently benefiting from the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program, which pays a bimonthly stipend of N10,000 per household; the 355,000 vulnerable persons have received a special one-off grant of N20,000 each in the 36 states and the FCT; the beneficiaries of Nigeria’s Micro-Pension Scheme which allows self-employed persons and persons working in organisations with less than 3 employees to save for the provision of pension at retirement or incapacitation.
“Punch possibly doesn’t have a record of the government’s Survival Fund, the National Youth Investment Fund, and National Special Public Works Program (774,000 beneficiaries across 774 LGAs nationwide), and the Central Bank’s COVID-19 N300 billion Targeted Credit Facility (TCF) to support millions of small businesses, households, and young people, with federal grants, loans, and stipends.
“This Survival Fund has provided grants (Payroll Support, Artisan and Transport Sector grants, and General MSME grants) to more than 1.2 million beneficiaries, since the last quarter of 2020. It has also provided free business registration to 250,000 MSMEs across the country.
“Nor will he be forgotten by the owners of the new 40 plus fertilizer companies and the thousands of people they employ, producing locally to service the more than 12 million new rice growers who in turn provide six million tons of paddy processed by more 100 new rice mills with Kano alone having 62, and others spreading far and wide to Ebonyi, Lagos, Ekiti, Adamawa, Bauchi, Gombe, Kaduna, Katsina and others.
“No, Punch should stop living in denial. These ones and their kith and kin making up the 200 million plus citizens of our country, the teachers whose backlog of unpaid salaries were paid and the pensioners from years yore, denied payment and treated with contempt now smiling their way to the banks will remember positively that Muhammadu Buhari came, saw and he conquered.”
