N500bn social welfare: 1million poor Nigerians to get N5,000 directly – Presidency

The Senior Special Assistant on Media in the Office of the Vice President, Adeolu Akande, on Sunday revealed that one million extremely poor Nigerians would be direct beneficiaries of the N5,000 monthly cash transfer.

A statement by Akande disclosed that a total of N60 billion would be directly transferred to one million extremely poor Nigerians in accordance to President Muhammadu Buhari’s vision of building human capital.

The payment which is to commence once the budget is approved by the National Assembly, is in addition to another five social interventions that include the provision of one meal a day to school pupils in some selected states.

He revealed that other elements of the social intervention scheme, include the 500,000 direct jobs, which will see unemployed graduates being trained and deployed as volunteer teachers in their communities.

According to Akande, the current government is putting together a youth employment plan which will see the training of 370,000 non-graduates youths in different skills and vocational programmes.

Akande said, “The recruitment of beneficiaries into the volunteer teaching jobs and the skill acquisition training scheme for non-graduates would be done on state basis, including the FCT and opened to all Nigerians of different shades.”

He also disclosed that one million Nigerians, mostly small scale traders, artisans and market women, through micro finance would get a one-time soft loan of N60,000 each through the Bank of Industry.

Akande also revealed that the current administration plans to pay tuition fee for 100,000 students of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, STEM.

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