‘We won’t allow politicians manipulate social investment programmes in Kogi’

The focal person in charge of the federal government’s social investment programme in Kogi State, Mr Adoga Ibrahim, has said that politicians would not be allowed to manipulate the programmes designed for the benefit of less privileged and vulnerable people in the state.

Adoga, who spoke in Lokoja, during an interactive session with some of the beneficiaries of N-Power programme from Ijumu Local Government Area of the state, noted that the process of selection and disbursements of funds to beneficiaries of the various social investment programmes in Kogi, has remained transparent and based on merit.

According to him, the various social investment programmes in the state, namely N-Power, Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) and the GEEP/Marketmoni have recorded successes across the state, adding that the Home Grown School Feeding would soon take off in the state.

He said that a recent allegation by a politician, where he claimed that the social investment programme was non-existent in Kogi was “a mere smear campaign and cheap blackmail” targeted at discrediting the successes so far recorded by the programmes in the state.

“We believe that politicians should not play politics on social media; politicians should go to their people in the grassroots. Politicians should not stay in Abuja and Lagos and be running down programmes that children of the poor and vulnerable are benefiting from just because they were unable to manipulate the process.

“The N-Power programme in Kogi cannot be manipulated. It is a program for those who before now did not have hope”, he said.