The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Nentawe Yilwatda, has said more than 10 million vulnerable Nigerians who benefited from the Federal Government’s N75,000 conditional cash transfer are not active on social media because many do not have phones or television sets.
Yilwatda disclosed this on Saturday while speaking with journalists after a three- day retreat of the APC National Executive Council (NEC) in Maiduguri, Borno State.
According to him, the beneficiaries, whom he described as poor and vulnerable Nigerians, cannot participate in public discussions about government policies because of their limited access to technology and information channels.
“We have given N75,000 to over 10 million Nigerians across the country using the conditional cash transfer under the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction.
“Mind you, these people who are poor and vulnerable don’t have telephones to make calls, they are not on social media. They don’t have a television. They cannot come and challenge and discuss as we are doing here, but they are out there,” he said.
Yilwatda also defended the Tinubu administration’s removal of fuel subsidy while criticising former Vice President and African Democratic Congress presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, over his position on the policy.
“We are constructing roads and paying people that are working on the road site, and construction is going across the country,” he said.
He argued that subsidy removal had enabled states to pay salaries and pensions, warning that restoring the subsidy could affect government-funded projects, including student loans and infrastructure.
“The projects we’re doing across the country, like the coastal road and gas project to the north, which have passed Abuja, which are aimed at easing the suffering of Nigerians, will be suspended,” he said.
