Nigeria’s Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo has said that Nigeria has sought assistance of the World Bank and the Bill Gates Foundation to map the really poor people in Nigeria for the federal government’s social protection programme.
Osinbajo admitted at a side event of the African Union Summit, hosted on Saturday by the President of Ghana, Mr. John Mahama, holding in Kigali, Rwanda that in determining who the poorest is, “we had problems on that.”
“We had to get inside the communities looking for the poorest of the poor with the small sum of money which is about N5,000 (which is roughly about $25 dollars or there about) which is a sum of money that would be given to the poorest every month, which may enable them feed themselves and find something that they may do and on the condition that they send their children to school and participate in immunization.”
Osinbajo, who is leading the Nigerian delegation to the continent meeting, told the breakfast event attended by a number of presidents and several heads of delegations to the AU meeting that the whole idea of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) “is really about addressing inequality and poverty.”
He called on African nations to rise up to the urgent need to address the problems of poverty and inequality even as the global community focuses on its new SDGs.
Professor Osinbajo observed that the problems of poverty and inequality are so obvious that “however we described the programme, we really must do something and something urgently.”
He narrated how the Nigeria’s current budget cycle has provision for largest social protection programme.
“It’s a N500 billion programme-(worth over $2.5B as at the time budget was signed.)
“Basically, we are looking at lifting many out of poverty, of course many are familiar with the size of the Nigerian state and we have close to hundred and ten million people who are poor and about two-tenth are in extreme poverty.
“So it is a very huge problem and part of what we are trying to do is to look at how not just to empower people but also to ensure that what they are given is sustainable.
“For the women, we are doing a programme, micro-credit programme for a million market women and artisans.
“All would be given facilities, training facilities as well to enable them to be able to do some work for themselves and to continue to be able to live.
“And we think that giving this micro-credit loan to women is to make sure that they handle money better and do a much better work on the whole.
“So l think that with what we ve’ done already, we have seen that they are certainly going to work.
“In the case of Conditional Cash Transfer, again we are handing these to women. We are giving (this to) another million, to the poorest of the poor.
“So we are really excited about some of the works we are trying to do around the SDGs and we are hopeful that we’ll be able to get the Social Protection Programme working.” [myad]
