Buhari needs budgetary provision for N5,000 stipend – Omoworare

The Chairman, Senate Committee on Rules and Business, Senator Babajide Omoworare, has said that President Muhammadu Buhari needs budgetary provision to implement the proposed N5,000 stipend for each youth nationwide.

A statement by the media aide to Omoworare, Mr. Tunde Dairo, on Monday, quoted the representative of Osun-East senatorial district, as blaming the PDP senate caucus for calling for the immediate implementation of the N5,000 palliative for unemployed youths in the country.

The statement said, “The call by the PDP for an immediate implementation of the N5,000 unemployment palliative by the All Progressives Congress-led Federal Government is a call to impunity.

“It is a call to executive recklessness, misappropriation of funds and bad governance. The motion calling for the “immediate implementation” of the N5,000 unemployment benefit was done in bad faith.

Last week, a PDP senator representing the Federal Capital Territory, Philip Aduda, had raised a prayer urging the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government to fulfill one of its campaign promises of paying N5,000 to unemployed youths monthly nationwide.

Aduda said this prayer was raised in order to cushion the effect of economic hardship on the unemployed in the country.

Before Aduda raised the prayer, a PDP senator from Cross River-East senatorial district, Bassey Akpan, had sponsored a motion titled, “Urgent need to curb the soaring rate of unemployment in Nigeria.”

Aduda, who is the senate minority whip said, “The Federal Government should immediately commence the payment of the N5,000 monthly stipend it promised during the pre-election campaign.”

The Senate Minority Leader, Senator Godswill Akpabio, seconded Aduda’s additional prayer.

But Omoworare immediately raised the Senate Standing Order 53(6) to oppose the additional prayer.

Describing the Aduda’s prayer as an invitation to misappropriation of taxpayers monies, Omoworare said President Buhari had strenuously been recovering government funds looted under PDP’s watch.

He said, “The period of economic misadventure, executive recklessness, impunity and misappropriation is over. With the change in government, the era of accountability, probity and transparency has come.”