President Buhari’s last televised message to Nigerians has been living in my head, rent-free. Not only did he ignore most of what he was supposed to talk about, he somehow used most of the time to brag about how much his government has done to alleviate poverty in Nigeria. Which is insane because:

This happened in 2018 btw. 3 years after Buhari came into power.

Buhari’s constant bragging made me look up some of the poverty alleviation schemes that have been initiated by members of the government since he came into power in 2015. Here are 5 I found.

1) That time the First Lady of Bauchi State distributed bags of pure water to women as start-up capital.

Yes. In June 2020, Dr Aisha Bala Muhammed empowered some women in the state by giving them 10 bags of pure water each so they could start businesses with. To understand how insane this is, a bag of water costs like N100. You do the math.

2) That time a member of the Zamfara House of Representatives distributed basins, coal irons, and detergent to the youths.

Kabiru Amadu, popularly referred to as Mai-Palace, did this in July 2020 as a way to empower the youths in his constituency.

3) That time the minister of humanitarian affairs, disaster management and social development, Sadiya Umar Farouk, flagged off a Federal Government Special Grant of N20,000 to 700,000 rural women.

Financially empowered with N20,000? Girl…

4) That time the Nigerian Presidency’s Twitter account announced that payments of N30,000 were ongoing to 330,000 artisans across Nigeria in an Artisan Support Scheme but this happened:

Girl, I…

5) That time they gave out tricycles and moped scooters.

This is funny and infuriating because whenever Nigerian youth do exceptional shit in world-class fields (e.g. Paystack’s recent acquisition), the government tries to take credit for it.

But keke napeps are their idea of youth empowerment. Tueh.

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