By Nimi Princewill.
The Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on social investment, Maryam Uwais, has thrown her weight behind the Federal Government’s Social Investment Programmes (SIP).
Defending the accomplishment of the SIP which was criticized to have underachieved its objectives in the North by the wife of the president Aisha Buhari, Uwais explained that if Mrs Buhari had availed herself of the information contained in the SIP data and paid attention to it, she would have discovered all beneficiaries of the project.
Uwais who spoke in a television broadcast, disclosed that about 290,000 beneficiaries from Mrs Buhari’s home state, Adamawa, were being paid under the initiative.
The presidential aide was quoted as saying, “I believe that if she (Aisha) were to listen to the information they have there, if she were to check our data, she would be able to find all the beneficiaries.
“Yes, she may not have met them. But we are in 12 local government areas for the cash transfer. We are also in 12 LGAs for loans. So, I think we have at least 290,000 beneficiaries directly that we are paying in Adamawa State.”
Uwais also revealed that the school feeding programme is currently ongoing in over 1,000 public primary schools in Adamawa and that more could have been achieved with more resources.