Peter Uzoho
The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr. Betta Edu, yesterday flagged off the federal government’s verification of the National Social Register in Makoko, Lagos State.
According to the minister, the exercise will ensure that the federal government’s social register is accurate and captures the people who deserve to be on the register.
Edu said she was in the community to flag off the Social Register verification for the Vulnerable People Living in the Makoko Area of the state.
She said: “We are here today in the Makoko area of Lagos state because President Bola Tinubu has asked us to come here and verify the National Social Register.
“The president desires to ensure that the social register is accurate and indeed captures the people that deserve to be on that register.
“The Federal Government of Nigeria is trying to put monies in the hands of Nigerians.
“This is to assist them in terms of their businesses, livelihood, job creation, of course, to help them afford basic things like sending their children to school and ensuring that they can access to quality health services.’’
“For us to do this, we need to verify the National Social Register.”
According to the minister, the president is determined to ensure that those on the national social register are truly poor and live under one dollar per day.
The president has approved that we go down to the grassroots and ensure that the national social register is a true reflection of people who are poor, who live under one dollar a day, and people who live in remote areas and areas that truly need help.
“Those who should not be on the register should be removed. Those who need to be on the register should be included.
“And so, we are taking this as one of the samples. We are doing both the community targeting and geographical targeting.
“This is our first sample and we have gone round and we have seen that certain aspects of the Makoko was covered under the national register.
“However, the last area that we came for was not reflected on the national social register and so, we will be coming back to do a targeted capturing of the people in this area,” Edu said.
She also said that the exercise would be carried out across the country to ensure that a National Social Register in Nigeria has integrity.
“We will work with the governors, we will work with the states, we will work with the local governments and we will work with the community heads.
“And we can be sure that those who are being captured and those we will be making the conditional cash transfers to are those who truly need it devoid of political interference, devoid of social interference and devoid personal interest.”
The minister distributed some food items to the affected residents of the area and conducted a free health outreach on the sidelines of her visit.
Edu also said: “We won’t just come here empty-handed and we have tried to see that we can send in some food items, some palliative to them.
“The distribution will still continue. They will go house-to-house using the boats and drop the items at their various locations.
“This is actually what we need to do to ensure that we target the right persons as we make the move to end poverty in Nigeria and reduce humanitarian crises.
“We are also working with the National Population Commission, so we can go all the way to the grassroots.
“They (the population commission) have individuals in all the 8,200 polling units, wards, communities across the country.
“So, we have persons there that will truly verify the register for us, identify the human beings, then tell us areas that have not been captured,” Edu said.
