One million artisans and market women will get soft loans of N60,000 each under President Mohammadu Buhari’s social protection programme.
The Social Protection Programme would be coordinated by Mrs Maryam Uwais, a Principal Partner of Wali Uwais & Co, an Abuja-based law firm. She would work with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on the president’s pet project.
The micro-credit component is one of a six-point social protection programme of Buhari’s administration that will require the approval of the National Assembly to become part of the budget. Others 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);the Homegrown School Feeding and the Free Education Scheme.
The payment of N5,000 to one million Nigerians, according to Professor Osinbajo, would enable extremely poor Nigerians “to live decently.”
The World Bank is working with the Federal Government on some of these programmes including the CCT.”
By Dike Onwuamaeze