VP Osinbajo explains the 6 Social Protection Programs of the Buhari Administration

As the National Assembly begins debating the 2016 Budget submitted by President Muhammadu Buhari, there are specific provisions in the proposals that will confront poverty in the country in a bold and direct way according to the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo.

“We are dealing with the issues of poverty with the 2016 Budget that is currently being debated,” the Vice President said during a courtesy visit by a delegation of Reckitt Benckiser West Africa, a household care products’ company led by its West Africa Managing Director, Mr. Rahul Murgai and the Chairman in Nigeria, Chief Olu Falomo.

All together there are 6 social protection programmes of the Buhari administration for which funds have been allocated in the 2016 budget. These are:
1. Teach Nigeria, where 500,000 graduates would be hired as teachers,
2. Youth Employment and Empowerment-where between 300,000-500,000 youths would go through skills acquisition and vocational training,
3. the Conditional Cash Transfer, where one million extremely poor Nigerians will receive N5000 monthly this year,
4. Homegrown School Feeding where one meal a day would be served to public primary school children across the country,
5. Free Education for tertiary education 100,000 students of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics and
6. the Micro-Credit Scheme that will give N60,000 one time soft loans to market women, and artisans.

The company had earlier discussed with the VP its ‘Save the Children’ Initiative, a Corporate Social Responsibility programme designed to curb the deaths of Nigerian children caused by Diarrhea.

While welcoming the initiative, Prof. Osinbajo explained that a lot has to be done in the country to confront poverty and its impacts on Nigerians.

He said for the first time in the nation’s history about half a trillion Naira is being provided for the six social investment programmes.

The Vice President commended the company for its intervention saying “this is the sort of thing we expect from those who have the resources.”