Trader Moni Scheme Is Not ‘Vote-Buying’ - VP Osinbajo

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has rubbished reports that the Federal Government’s Trader Moni scheme is a form of vote-buying.

There have been reports that scheme is a ploy by the President Muhammadu Buhari’s government to buy votes ahead of the 2019 elections where he will be seeking re-election.


Osinbajo, has, however, noted that the Trader Moni initiative was meant to help in boosting small scale businesses which often find it hard getting loans.

He spoke on Thursday in Abuja at the inspection of the Trader Moni centre at the Bank of Industry (BoI) headquarters.

According to Osinbajo “anybody who calls Trader Moni vote-buying is absurd. You can see it for yourself that this is a programme that has affected millions of lives.

“In any case, it was approved by the Senate and the entire National Assembly. If a programme is duly approved by the National Assembly and we are going out and implementing that programme and doing it as vigorously as possible.

“I don’t understand where anyone will get that kind of notion from. It is [a] very weird notion.”

He added that more than 1.5 million petty traders have gained from the Trader Moni scheme and that it is the largest of such programme running in Africa.

Osinbajo disclosed that over 1.5 million petty traders had benefited from the programme, which targets to capture at least two million traders before the end of the year.