Presidency: N5,000 for poor Nigerians still stands.

The Presidency who recently made it known to Nigerians that there was never a time a promise was made on giving the unemployed graduates N5,000 but made know the plans which is far more than the N5,000 because it now a case of teaching the youths how to fish instead of the giving them fish.
The Presidency on Monday night insisted that the
N5,000 stipend promised for the vulnerable and
poor Nigerians still stands.
President Muhammadu Buhari was claimed to have
gone back on the promise while speaking to the
Nigerian community in Saudi Arabia last week when he went for lesser Hajj.
But the Senior Special Assistant on Media andPublicity, Laolu Akande, while speaking to State
House correspondents said that the 2016 Budget which has been submitted to the National Assembly has made an allocation of half a trillion naira for such social investment.
He also pointed out that President Muhammadu Buhari never promised to pay unemployed
graduates N5,000.
He said: “The budget for 2016 which has been submitted to the National Assembly has made an
allocation of half a trillion naira, the first time in
the history of this country’s budget where you
have that huge chunk of money allocated for social
investment.
“In that 500 billion naira which is half a trillion naira, close to about 20 per cent of the entire
budget, there are six social safety net programmes.
And one of them is the conditional cash transfer
where government is going to pay N5,000 monthly
to the vulnerable and extremely poor Nigerians.
That promise stands.
“The President never promised to pay unemployed
graduates N5,000; the President never made that
promise and the government never made that claim
that it will pay N5,000 to unemployed graduates.
“The programme for unemployed graduates is the
direct creation of half a million teaching jobs so
that they will be trained; 500,000 unemployed
graduates will be trained to teach and they will be
deployed to teach, while they are looking for their
career paths or jobs. That still stands.
“In addition to that, there is also a scheme to train
370,000 non-graduate youth for skill acquisition and vocational training. During the time of that
training, they will also be paid. So the President did not say that he would be giving unemployed
graduates N5,000.” He said.
Continuing, Laolu said: “The N5,000 monthly which
is already in the budget is for the vulnerable Nigerians and the extremely poor, and this year by
the grace of God, once the budget is okay , one
million extremely poor Nigerians will receive N5,000 monthly.
Nigerians are glad to have a government who have decided to remember the poor.