Laolu Akande, a former spokesperson for ex-Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, has expressed his perspective on the leadership tenures of ex-President Muhammadu Buhari.
According to him, the former President had a more effective grip during his first term from 2015 to 2019 compared to his second term between May 2019 and May 2023.
Speaking on Channels Television on Thursday, Akande shared insights on the challenges faced by the National Social Investment Programmes (NSIPA), emphasizing the unfavourable outcome of moving it from the presidency to the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management, and Social Development.
The discussion arose in connection with the launch of a new book titled ‘Working with Buhari: Reflections of A Special Adviser, Media, and Publicity (2015-2023),’ authored by Femi Adesina, ex-presidential spokesman.
Having acknowledged the amiable nature of Buhari, he critiqued certain decisions made during his tenure.
He highlighted a significant gap with creating the Humanitarian Affairs Ministry, leading to a sharp disconnection from the previously successful National Social Investment Programmes.
“President Buhari, between 2015 and 2019, had a better grip on things than between 2019 and 2023. Some strategic decisions, like creating the Humongous Humanitarian Affairs Ministry for social investment, lacked agreement,” Akande asserted.
Akande also criticized the abrupt program transfer from those who excelled from 2016 to 2019, causing tension and disruption.
“You took it from them,” he said, adding that “It was a very tense situation.”
“If you are going to do that, you don’t have that kind of sharp disconnection because it was a sharp disconnection between the people who were handling it from 2016 and 2019.
“I think the President was trying to say that let’s institutionalise this in a ministry but there was no handshake between those who were handling it and the new ministry,” he added.
The National Social Investment Office (NSIO) was created in 2016 and was put under the supervision of then VP Osinbajo.
The programmes under the NSIPA involved four broad programmes (N-Power, Conditional Cash Transfers, National Home-Grown School Feeding and Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programmes).
They were uniquely targeted towards different subgroups of Nigerians for empowerment and impacted over 12 million direct beneficiaries and over 30 million indirect beneficiaries.
However, mid-2019, Buhari moved the programmes to a new ministry – humanitarian affairs, which has been embattled in series of fraud recently.
