COVID-19: Statement Calling N20,000 Beneficiaries ‘Poor’ Is Fake Says Osinbajo

The office of the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo has debunked reports on social media giving reasons why the names of those who received N20,000 cash transfers from the government cannot be made public.

Reports emerged on Friday of Presidential Special Adviser on Social Investment, Maryam Uwais allegedly explaining that the names of beneficiaries of N20,000 could not be made public because they did not want to be identified as ‘poor people’

The alleged statement read: “We cannot publish the names of those who received conditional cash transfers because those who got this benefit from the federal government as a palliative to cushion the effects of the lockdown caused by coronavirus don’t want to be addressed as poor people.

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They are invisible and dwell where the conventional society cannot see them and carrying journalists along to investigate the authenticity of the payments to the target persons will be cost-implicative to the scheme because the funds at hand cannot pay for extra burden as we are only managing what we have.”

But, the Special Adviser to the Vice President, Laolu Akande via his official Twitter page described the statement as false.

According to him, the report making the rounds in an attempt to deceive the public and hide the truth.

His tweet read: “This statement below was not what the Presidential Special Adviser on Social Investment said.
Just checked out the text of her well-publicized statement. It’s certainly FAKE when an attempt is made to mix truth, half-truth and falsehood together,

“Beware, fake is fake!