N5,000 stipend for poor Nigerians still stands, says Presidency

The Presidency on Monday night insisted that
the N5,000 stipend promised for the vulnerable
and poor Nigerians still stands.
President Muhammadu Buhari was claimed to
have gone back on the promise while speaking
to the Nigerian community in Saudi Arabia last
week.
But the Senior Special Assistant on Media and
Publicity, Laolu Akande, while speaking to State
House correspondents said that the 2016
Budget which has been submitted to the
National Assembly has made an allocation of
half a trillion naira for such social investment.
He also pointed out that President
Muhammadu Buhari never promised to pay
unemployed graduates N5,000.
He said: “The budget for 2016 which has been
submitted to the National Assembly has made
an allocation of half a trillion naira, the first
time in the history of this country’s budget
where you have that huge chunk of money
allocated for social investment.
“In that 500 billion naira which is half a trillion
naira, close to about 20 per cent of the entire
budget, there are six social safety net
programmes. And one of them is the
conditional cash transfer where government is
going to pay N5,000 monthly to the vulnerable
and extremely poor Nigerians. That promise
stands.
“The President never promised to pay
unemployed graduates N5,000; the President
never made that promise and the government
never made that claim that it will pay N5,000 to
unemployed graduates.
“The programme for unemployed graduates is
the direct creation of half a million teaching
jobs so that they will be trained; 500,000
unemployed graduates will be trained to teach
and they will be deployed to teach, while they
are looking for their career paths or jobs. That
still stands.
“In addition to that, there is also a scheme to
train 370,000 non-graduate youth for skill
acquisition and vocational training. During the
time of that training, they will also be paid. So
the President did not say that he would be
giving unemployed graduates N5,000.” He said.
Continuing, Laolu said: “The N5,000 monthly
which is already in the budget is for the
vulnerable Nigerians and the extremely poor,
and this year by the grace of God, once the
budget is okay , one million extremely poor
Nigerians will receive N5,000 monthly.”