FG’s Questionable Social Investment Schemes

                                        Notes for File

When Nigerians think they have seen it all, one piece of news will make them feel they haven’t seen anything yet.

This was the case last week when the federal government through the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development said that it had spent a whopping over N6.2 billion to train and equip 16,820 Bauchi youths in the art of smartphone repairs to enable them to become financially self-reliant.

According to the minister, Sadiya Farouq, who spoke at the flag-off of the N-Skills (Smart Phone Repairs) Programme in Bauchi, the programme is used to pilot the N-Skills programme, which is part of the N-Power non-graduate programme.

Even though the minister did not explain how many people were trained over which period; how many mobile phones are in use in Bauchi State; and the amount of revenue telcos derive from Bauchi State, Nigerians are already raising eyebrows.

From calculations, the ministry used about N385,000 to train each youth, which to many is outrageous. Each time Nigerians hear billions of naira being spent on Social Investment Programme, they wonder why the country still has very high rate of unemployment and poverty. Instantly, they suspect foul play.

Two years ago, even the First Lady, Mrs. Aisha Buhari, had openly carpeted the programme, describing it as a failure, especially in the Northern part of the country.

The president’s wife, who said she had kept quiet to avoid being accused of raising the alarm, added that the programme was equally a failure in her own state of Adamawa, where she said that only one out of 22 local councils benefitted from the programme, as of then.

Almost simultaneously, after the federal government claimed it had spent N13billion Gombe State, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriation and former governor of the state, Danjuma Goje, disclosed: “I am from Gombe State, I represent Gombe Central. I am yet to see one single boy who came to tell me that he has benefited from your N500 billion. Many other Nigerians are saying the same thing. N500 billion for 36 states is about N13 billion. If you spend N13 billion in one year in Gombe State, there is no way I would not have known, other people will also know.”