Betta Edu, Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, said the Federal Government (FG) aims to cooperate closely with state governors, local governments, and community leaders to check and update the country’s social registry.
Edu said this on Channels Television’s program on Friday, stressing that it is part of the Humanitarian Ministry’s mission to pull millions of Nigerians out of poverty.
“We are going to verify and update, and we are going to work with the governors and local governments so that they can own it,” she said.
According to the minister, “The very first thing which we are starting almost immediately is the verification of the social register. We are going to first carry out full verification of the social register to ensure that truly it is the poorest of the poor – those who deserve to be on that list.”
She added that there has been back and forth with the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) and various other interested parties for weeks, noting, “The social register is okay, it is not okay.” People who are legitimately impoverished are not on the list, there is some political influence involved, and so on.”
The National Executive Council (NEC) governors had previously criticized the current social register, claiming that it lacked integrity and was unsuited to carry out any social action.
She stated, “One of the challenges which they raised was that they were not involved in the process of really getting the poorest of the poor.
“As a country, we have to have ownership of whatever data that we are bringing out from the grassroots,” adding that, “the local government people, the governors must be involved, traditional rulers and even the religious leaders should be involved.”
Working with this strategy, she claims, will enable leaders attest that “yes, indeed, these are poor people in our communities, and we know them.” We can identify them as human people, not simply numbers and names, and this is what we believe that we are comfortable working with.”
She went on to say that if the ministry begins working with the NEC, “they will accept it because it is their own product now.”
According to Edu, the ministry would work closely with the NEC to check, remove, update, and reintroduce it so that the national, state, and local governments can proudly declare ownership, simplifying other social safety net initiatives for disadvantaged Nigerians.
