Buhari’s regime squandered women’s $100m loan, Uju Kennedy- Ohanenye reveals

A World Bank approved $100m loan meant for women empowerment scheme was mismanaged by the Muhammadu Buhari administration.
Minister of Women Affairs, Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye, said during an interview on Arise TV Monday that the $100m was the first installment of a $500 million loan to Nigeria for women development programs
Ms Kennedy-Ohanenye alleged that the $100m was mainly used for meetings and consulting, the rest was shared among the states.
“President Bola Tinubu came in when the first $100m has been spent,” said the Minister.
“When he came into the office, he looked at it with me and we were not satisfied with how the money was used.
“When money is a loan, we expect whoever is given the loan to be allowed to utilise it properly in a way that the money will be paid back, so Nigeria will not continue owing all the time.
“So, the first $ 100 million, when I came in, I was not satisfied. It didn’t augur well with the Renewed Hope agenda.
“It was mainly for advocacy, meetings, and consultancy, and that was it and they shared it among the states.
“But remember, the project is called Nigeria For Women Project. It is supposed to be meant for projects for women, but that was not the case.”
She added that the President has approved a new structure and the Ministry of Finance would soon commence disbursement.
“Fortunately, I quickly raised a new structure on how that money will be utilised so there won’t be more issues of advocacy, meetings and consultancy, which to me is a way of lavishing the money. So we took a new structure to him (Tinubu), he looked at it and he signed a memo, approving it for restructure.
” I quickly wrote to the Minister of Finance, Wale Edun, and I’m waiting for the new template to be restructured because Nigerian women are concerned, and we can work with the old structure.
“The former structure was there and women continued suffering. $500million is not a small amount of money, and I can assure you that it can change the lives of every woman who is vulnerable in this country, and I have planned myself from the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs, awaiting the new structure. What did I do? I created a portal, and we have started onboarding women from the communities we partner with all the traditional rulers and commissioners across the nation and they have started onboarding the vulnerable women from communities.”