The National Social Investment Programme (N-SIP), said on Monday that no fewer than 1.3 million vulnerable people have benefited from its various intervention programmes in Kano State.
Mr Ismaeel Ahmed, Senior Special Assistant on SIP to the President, made the disclosure at a special prayer session organised by beneficiaries of the programme in Kano State for the success of President Muhammadu Buhari’s second term in office.
The prayer held at Murtala Mohammed Library Kano, attracted various Islamic scholars in the state, with thousands of beneficiaries in attendance.
It would be recalled that the president’s wife, Aisha Buhari, recently lamented over the N500bn social investment scheme embarked upon by the federal government.
Aisha had said: “I don’t want to raise the alarm that my state does not benefit from it, where the SGF (Secretary to the Government of the Federation) came from, I kept quiet because I don’t want people to say that I talk too much.
“Recently, I saw a 74-year-old man selling petty things in Kano, I asked him how much is his capital, he told me between N3,000 and N4,000. Don’t forget that we have campaigned to give the poorest of the poor N5,000 every month.
“So, I don’t know where is the social investment… Maybe, it worked out in some states. In my own state, only a local government benefited out of the 22.”
But according to Ahmed, 51,350 household spread across 1,651 communities in the Kano state have been supported under the Conditional Cash Transfer Scheme for vulnerable persons.
Ahmed disclosed that 18, 594 graduates were also engaged under the N-Power programme while 1,043,014 children are being provided free meals in public primary schools across the state.
“Over 180,000 traders are currently benefitting from the Trader Moni programme and we are hoping to engage more people in the state,” he said.
