Governor Uba Sani of Kaduna State has said that plans by the Federal government to transfer N8,000 cash to 12 million poor Nigerians as a form of palliative to cushion the effect of fuel subsidy removal is a ‘scam’.
In an interview with Arise Television, Sani said there was no certainty of an accurate and updated database of the Nigerian people that will benefit from the scheme.
“My position has always been that, at this critical time, cash transfer should not be something that we should bring up. I think that cash transfer for me, in my opinion, is a scam. Completely it’s a scam. I can be very certain about that, because who are you transferring the money to?
Let me give an example, go and check the current statistics. Like I said, as the Chairman, Committee of Banking for four years in Nigeria, I oversight Central Bank, I oversight all the commercial sectors of our economy for the last four years and I looked at the statistics, I will be very firm on this issue and you can go and check it.
About 70 to 75 per cent of the rural population in North West are financially excluded completely. You will have to go and check, these people we are talking about are important people in the society. They do not even have a bank account so who are you transferring the money to?” he said
The governor added that the social register has not been updated, giving a case study of the North West region, that about 70% of the rural population was not captured in 2019 due to insecurity. He said this as he defended the position of the National Executive Council (NEC) saying the social register lacked credibility.
“In my opinion, what we said was that the social register should be updated. If you are aware, some of the names were put together as far back as 2019. And of course, nothing is constant. For example, some local governments in my state are not captured largely because of the insecurity in the state, and believe me, truly, the social register lacks credibility,” he said
The governor noted that the government should ensure that the financially excluded individuals especially in the North West are addressed and brought into the financial system before implementing the cash transfer programme.