Tradermoni, Not A Vote Buying Instrument, Says Osinbajo

• That’s What It Is — Odilim Enweagbara

THE Tradermoni programme was to empower the over 30 million Micro-, Small- and MediumEnterprises (MSMES) with interest-free, collateral-free loans and has nothing to do with vote buying, as being insinuated in some quarters, Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo clarified yesterday.

The explanation came as an economist and entrepreneur, Mr. Odilim Enweagbara, insisted the scheme was purely a vote buying machine deployed by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to hoodwink innocent and weak citizens to fraudulently obtain their votes against their will.

Accordingly, he wants the scheme investigated and disbursements audited to expose perceived plundering of the public tilt by the ruling party under the guise of empowerment.

However, Osinbajo’s response to a questionnaire sent to him on the scheme and probable withdrawal after the general elections declared that the programme was still on.

In the response made through his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Communications, Mr. Laolu Akande, the Vice President said: “The Trader Moni scheme is one of the Government, Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP) micro-credit products.

“Marketmoni and FarmerMoni are still very much in operation. We have a target of 30,000 minimum beneficiaries per state, and we have achieved this in majority of the 36 states and Federal Capital Territory (FCT). What the team has been doing is generating the balance of programme funding and ramping up on the states where we have a shortage.”

But Enweagbara said: “That fraud called Tradermoni must be independently investigated. Tradermoni was the newest form of vote buying and inducement of voters to vote for APC. That was why it was done a few months to the 2019 general elections and has since been stopped because the objective has since been achieved.”