A member of the Board Of Trustees of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Ismael Ahmed, has said that President Muhammadu Buhari will give women and youth a measure of attention in his appointment of officials.
On Channels Television’s programme, Sunrise Daily, on Monday, Mr Ahmed dismissed claims that women, youths and the south-eastern part of Nigeria had been marginalised going by the appointments made so far.
“The President has reassured the youths that he would forever remember that they made his victory possible.
“The President is fully aware of that and he is going to carry every demography around.
“I think it is a premature statement for anyone to say that the women and youth folks have been left behind.
“It is impossible for anyone to ignore any region in Nigeria. There are a lot of appointments to be made,” he said.
On the issue of a conditional cash transfer to 25 million homes in Nigeria that the ruling party promised during the presidential campaign, Mr Ahmed said that the administration of President Buhari was still running on the budget of the past administration.
“The Buhari administration’s budget was authored and passed by the former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration. That has to end first before we can make provisions in the next budget to accommodate some of the plans that we have made right now.
“We never said that the conditional cash transfer to at least 25 million homes will be made immediately. We never set timeline to it,” the APC Board Of Trustees member said.
On the issues of corruption, he said that the current government had a zero tolerance for corruption and that the body language of the President was setting things in the right course.
“Most of the problems in Nigeria are basically artificial problems, and that of leadership and lack of will and the deep-seated patriotism that is needed to push the country forward.
“The president wants everything to be institutionalised and he has made few announcements that have to do with anti-corruption,” he said, citing the President’s mandate to Ministries, Department and Agencies to maintain a Treasury Single Account.