By Modupe Gbadeyanka
A social investment scheme of the federal government, where petty traders are given a soft loan of N10,000 has been described as another form of vote buying.
Next month, Nigeria holds general elections and for the past months, the federal government, through the Vice President, Mr Yemi Osibajo, has been going across the country to launch the scheme called TraderMoni.
Speaking on a Channels Television programme, Chairman of an anti-corruption group, Amnesty International, Mr Awwal Rafsanjani, said the policy was ill-advised and ill-timed.
Mr Rafsanjani said government was not honest with the scheme, which he said should have started earlier with the administration about three years ago, not close to election period, calling it a clear waste of public funds.
He said as far as he was concerned, the TraderMoni policy was nothing but vote buying.
“It was not a part and parcel of the manifesto of the ruling party and it is not in Nigerian constitution.
“It was not done three years ago. It was only started close to election time. So, the allegation by many Nigerians that this is clearly a case of vote buying using public funds goes contrary to our constitution and to having a free and fair election.
“That is why the Independent National Electoral Commission itself has seen this danger. The vote buying we are seeing has transformed to have more official recognition through the acts that unfortunately we are seeing performed by some of the agencies using public funds.
“This is despite the statement by the president that public funds will not be used for his re-election campaign. But this, unfortunately, is contrary to what Nigerians are seeing.
“Clearly, this is vote buying, as far as I am concerned,” the Amnesty International chief said on the programme.
Adedapo Adesanya 
Aduragbemi Omiyale