Faced with the reality of excruciating poverty in the country, occasioned by youth unemployment, social inequality, dwindling revenue and other related issues, President Muhammadu Buhari had, in his welfarist inclination, adopted short and medium-term intervention mechanisms, to cushion the accompanying biting effects.
Notwithstanding this, it will be safe to point out that President Buhari had, in many past policy actions, played into the hands of his ardent critics, who conceived him in the mould of a sectional leader who, they claim – rightly or wrongly – promotes a certain agenda that is inimical to national unity and peace.
Alas, the President seemed to have recalled the evergreen saying of the great Usman Dan Fodio, captured as follows: “Conscience is an open wound, and only truth can heal it”. No doubt, the Daura-born Democrat was determined to rewrite history, in a manner that will sound a death knell on the perception, which had become a potential threat to reality.
This writer, the staunchest of critics of this administration witnessed, first-hand, the presence of N-Power officials, who have arrived the states of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo, to deliver the dividend of democracy to the Igbo who, until recently, could be said to be an experimental guinea pig in the comity of nation-building – literally speaking.
For the fact that this government hardly advertises its achievements thus the near lack of information about NPOWER programme has accomplished among the youths in the South East, deliberate efforts are being made to bring these to public knowledge. Without a doubt, many Igbo youths have benefitted from the programme. This is contrary to the negative narrative of being left out in the ongoing National Social Investment Programmes of the Buhari-led administration.
An official, who volunteered to answer some of the nagging posers, said: “The objective of the FG’s deployment is to actively engage the target publics by way of information dissemination, education and persuasion with relevant messages tailored towards the different segments of the audience;