Thirty million Nigerians registered in National Social Register, FG says

THIRTY million Nigerians have been captured in the National Social Register that would facilitate the achievement of the Federal Government’s goal of lifting 100 million people out of poverty in the next 10 years.

According to News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) report , the disclosure was made by the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Alhaji Bashir Alkali, at the National Social Safety Nets Project (NASSP) engagement meeting with State Permanent Secretaries on Thursday in Abuja.

Alkali said NASSP was designed to have structures from the federal to the states, down to the local government levels, reflecting the three tiers of government.

“Currently, the NSR has 30 million Nigerians from 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory from seven million poor and vulnerable households. A further break down shows these households have been identified so far in 699 local government areas, 8,161 wards and 81, 776 communities across the country,” he said.

“The NSR is developed using the geographical and community-based targeting (CBT) Mechanism, using community members, anchored by the State Operation Coordinating Unit (SOCU) in each of the states. The National Cash Transfer Office (NCTO), has currently enrolled 1, 632,535 benefiting poor and vulnerable households in 45, 744 communities from 5, 483 Wards of 557 Local government areas in 35 states and FCT.”

Alkali explained that this translates to 8,100,682 individuals in the benefiting households through a representative of the household called ‘Caregiver or Alternate Caregiver’, which is paid bi-monthly (N10,000), adding that currently, 991,965 households were receiving payment in 28 states and the FCT.

He maintained that all these were to actualise the vision of President Muhammadu Buhari to pull 100 million Nigerians out of extreme poverty, saying that “there is a need to harmonised the structures and operation of SOCU. It is very important”.

The National Coordinator of NASSCO, Apera Iorwa, speaking at the meeting, said the state permanent secretaries are oversight officers of the programme in their respective state.

“There is a need for us to meet regularly and analyses issues, modalities and chart a way forward for the programme,” he said.

Iorwa further charged the permanent secretaries to be up and doing to avoid digressing from the objectives of the programme in the state, adding that states were liable to refund monies to the World Bank because accounts would be audited and if the funds are misused, they would be refunded.

The Federal Government, in 2016, established the National Social Investments Programmes (NSIP) to tackle poverty and hunger across the country.

Some of the initiatives under this programme include: the N-power programme, the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programme, Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP), and the Home Grown School Feeding Programme (HGSF).