Nigeria’s Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo on Monday said the major focus of the President Muhammadu Buhari led Federal Government is to bring smiles to the faces of the poor and less privileged in the society.
This Osinbajo maintained is evident in the retinue of programmes under the National Social Investment Programme N-SIP of the government which is to reduce poverty and give a new lease of life to vulnerable, poor, unemployed and low income earning Nigerians.
Osinbajo stated this at the Odo-Ori Market in Iwo, Osun State during the flag off of the distribution of N10, 000 to 30,000 Petty Traders under the TraderMoni scheme of the N-SIP.
The programme done in collaboration with the Bank of Industry according to the Vice President will boost the economy of Petty Traders and Market Men and Women who have hitherto been denied access to basic loans that goes long way in improving their business capital.
“This programme is part of the social intervention programme by President Buhari to discourage corruption in this nation and serve as a means to help petty traders in the country.”
“We want the wealth of this nation to be shared to every Nigerian. The wealth of this nation belongs to every citizen not some set of individuals and politicians but the common people of the country which should be used for development. “
“President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration is doing all within its power to discourage corruption in this nation and TraderMoni forms part of the ways we can discourage corrupt practices. We are going to continue in this regard till our people are taken away from poverty.”
Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State in his remarks at the event said the TraderMoni programme is initiated to add to the numerous social intervention programmes of his administration especially in the realm of providing loans for Micro Small Medium Enterprises MSME.
Aregbesola added that TraderMoni will complement the #50,000 Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme GEEP Loans rolled out to traders and other categories of business owners in November 2017.
“Governments before now have only bothered with the rich. We have decided to put money in pockets of the poor. We have given out N50, 000 each to traders with bank accounts. Today, we are giving N10, 000 each to poor traders. 10,000 petty traders have registered today while we are doing 30, 000 traders regardless of parties.”
“This adds to the numerous number of people empowered and granted soft loans through our Osun Micro Credit Agency platform. We will surely be committed to this even beyond my administration.”
Also, the Executive Director of Bank of Industry, Mrs. Toyin Adeniji stressed that the loan is exclusively for petty traders.
“N10,000 loan will be given to each trader which after six months of returning the loan, they will be entitled to collect another loan of N15,000 through the Bank of Industry”.
She urged the traders to pay back the loan which will further give room for them to get more in the future.
Dignitaries at the event included Aregbesola’s Deputy, Mrs Titi-Laoye Tomori, Oluwo of Iwo, Oba Abdulrasheed Adewale Akanbi, APC Governorship Candidate, Gboyega Oyetola and his Deputy, Benedict Alabi, Petty Traders at the Odo-Ori market in Iwo among other stakeholders.
