The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Social Investment, Mrs. Maryam Uwais, has faulted the president’s wife, First Lady, Aisha Buhari, over her recent statements that there is humongous fraud in the N500 billion Social Investment Program (SIP) and the N16 billion Mosquito Net Project of the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration. The Presidency insisted that contrary to Aisha Buhari’s claim, 250,000 people actually benefited from the said programs in Adamawa State. According to Uwais, 11,000 graduates were recruited and working on the scheme in Adamawa, while the school feeding program also kicked off in the state in October 2018 in 12 local government areas.
Meanwhile, the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has stated that the revelation by the First Lady has further vindicated its stance that the Buhari administration is deceitful and a pretentious citadel of corruption. The PDP in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, said that more disheartening was the fact that the said funds were meant for the welfare of the poor, whom the President had always claimed to represent in government.
The PDP added that Aisha Buhari’s revelation has further shown that the PDP has not been crying wolf by insisting that Buhari must account for the trillions of naira stolen under his watch in the last four years. He added, “Unfortunately, these poor Nigerians have been waiting endlessly for the failed social investments promised by President Buhari only to have their hopes dashed as revelations by Mrs. Buhari, which shown that the money provided for the program had been stolen.
“It is indeed appalling that the Buhari’s administration would be sitting on such colossal corruption and continues to thrive in evil concealment while diverting public attention from their rot by hounding innocent opposition figures on trump-up corruption charges.
“Nigerians can now see how the same administration presided over by Mr. Integrity has been using the names of innocent poor Nigerians to loot our national treasury and fritter away billions of naira to finance their wasteful lifestyle while Nigerians wallow in abject poverty.”
