The Muhammadu Buhari administration’s Social Intervention Programmes (SIP’s) has made little impact in addressing challenges facing Nigerian youth despite the billions invested in it over the past five years, according to Ali Ndume.
The senator representing Borno South senatorial district, said this on Sunday, while he appeared on a Channels Television programme, Politics Sunday.
He said the poor output and slow progress of the programmes were as a result of poor implementation by its administrators handling the projects.
“I can tell you that from the beginning, we came in with three main agenda. One is to secure the country, two is to fight corruption, and three is to provide infrastructure. You cannot say that the president has not performed in these three areas. But the impact and then the implementation is the problem.
“Under normal circumstances, you don’t expect the president to do that personally himself. He is supposed to get the able hands. That is where the problem started. That is where we have the problem.
“I will give you an example, in the case of the youth. When we were campaigning, we saw many youths and the president asked, what are we going to do with this? That was when the idea of N-Power came,” Mr Ndume said.
The N-Power programme is one of the four empowerment schemes set up by President Muhammadu Buhari in 2016 to improve the living conditions of millions of poor Nigerians across the country.
The scheme was domiciled in the office of the vice president, Yemi Osinbanjo during Mr Buhari’s first term in office. It has since been moved to the Humanitarian Affairs ministry, headed by Sadiya Farouq at the inception of the President’s second term in office.
The SIPs include the school feeding programme for primary school pupils, N-Power for jobless graduates, the conditional cash transfer for elderly vulnerable Nigerians, and the government empowerment programme that includes TraderMoni – giving microloans to small-scale traders.
