Buhari says he will not pay N5000 to unemployed Nigerians

 – President Buhari has said that he will not honour his pledge to grant every unemployed Nigerian N5000.  – The pledge was one the pillars of his 2015 presidential election campaign.  – He said he would rather focus his government’s money on building projects. In a shocking development, President Muhammadu Buhari has revealed that he will refuse to honour his pledge to grant N5000 to each unemployed Nigerian.



“This largesse N5,000 for the unemployed, I have got a slightly different priority,” the president said. “I would rather do the infrastructure, the school and correct them and empower agriculture, mining so that every able bodied person can go and get work instead of giving N5,000 to those who don’t work.” The pledge to jobless citizens was one of the pillars of Buhari’s All Progressives Congress (APC) election campaign last year and will likely be met with a furious reaction by voters.

APC Senators had already voted to reject the N5000 policy, however this is the first time that Buhari has stated that the initiative will not be implemented. Political commentators have long speculated that the policy would not be implemented, however the decision may be particularly embarrassing for Buhari as his own wife Aisha said her husband must make the payment. The federal government had agreed to finally make the payment in November 2015, but the government decided to stall and wait until the new year.