Buhari’s N10,000 ‘Trader Moni’ Is Vote-Buying – Transparency Int’l Declares

Global civil society organisation, Transparency International, has described the President Muhammadu Buhari government’s N10, 000 empowerment scheme codenamed ‘TraderMoni’ as a vote-buying ploy.

Speaking on Channels Television on Friday, Awwal Rafsanjani, a representative of Transparency International in Nigeria, questioned why the Buhari government waited till the end of its first tenure and a period it is seeking re-election before introducing the empowerment programme.

Rafsanjani described as an abuse of public funds, the disbursement of the N10, 000 to small scale traders in the country.

“It was not a part and parcel of the manifesto of the ruling party and it is not in Nigerian constitution,” he said.

“It was not done three years ago. It was only started close to election time. So, the allegation by many Nigerians that this is clearly a case of vote buying using public funds goes contrary to our constitution and to having a free and fair election.

“That is why the Independent National Electoral Commission itself has seen this danger. The vote buying we are seeing has transformed to have more official recognition through the acts that unfortunately we are seeing performed by some of the agencies using public funds.

“This is despite the statement by the president that public funds will not be used for his re-election campaign. But this, unfortunately, is contrary to what Nigerians are seeing.

“Clearly, this is vote buying, as far as I am concerned,” said the Transparency International Nigeria representative.

Meanwhile, the Federal Government had described TraderMoni as a collateral-free loan for petty traders and artisans in Nigeria.

The government introduced the empowerment programme under its National Social Investment Programme (Ń-SIP).