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The immediate past governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose, has faulted the Federal Government’s TraderMoni scheme as well as the manner in which the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo was executing the scheme.
In a statement issued by his media aide, Lere Olayinka, Fayose described the scheme as it is currentky being executed asan avenue for advanced vote buying.
Questioning the sense in Osinbajo’s trips across the country to disburse the funds to petty traders, Fayose wondered why Osinbajo should leave Abuja spending about N25 million on maintenance of presidential jet as well as allowances for himself, aides, protocols, security and others just to share N10 million.
According to him, if the President Muhammadu Buhari government was sincere about TraderMoni, the fund should have been paid into the bank accounts of beneficiaries.
He said if this was done, the disbursement would be easy to trace and properly audited.
His words: “When I was governor, more than 20,000 people got N5,000 monthly stipend and the money was paid into their bank accounts.”
“If not that TraderMoni was to reloot the recovered Abacha loot, the proper way was for beneficiaries to be captured biometrically and the N10,000 paid into their bank accounts instead of the Vice President going to the market to share cash.
“Most importantly, there is nowhere that the Vice President will travel to outside Abuja that he won’t spend up to N25 million on his allowances, maintenance of presidential jet and the allowances of his retinue of aides, including security men.
“Therefore, of what economic sense is going to say Kano to share the N10,000 cash to 1,000 people? Isn’t spending N25 million to share N10 million same as being penny wise pound foolish?” he said.
He said Nigerians had “already seen through the deceit of the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led federal government and will respond appropriately with their votes in 2019.”