Dr. Betta Edu, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, initiated the commencement of the Federal Government’s National Social Register verification in Makoko, Lagos state, on Saturday.
Nairametrics gathered that the minister also distributed some food items to the affected residents of the area and conducted a free health outreach on the sidelines of her visit.
The minister emphasized that this undertaking aims to guarantee the accuracy of the federal government’s social register, ensuring that it includes individuals who genuinely qualify for its benefits.
Edu further stated that her presence in the community marked the official commencement of the Social Register verification process for the Vulnerable People residing in the Makoko Area of the state.
What she said
She explained,
- “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 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.”
She further stated that the president is unwavering in his commitment to ensuring that individuals listed in the national social register are genuinely impoverished and subsist on less than one dollar per day.
Dr. Edu emphasized that the president has given his approval for the team to conduct extensive outreach efforts to validate that the national social register accurately represents those who are impoverished, living on less than one dollar a day, and residing in remote and genuinely disadvantaged areas in need of assistance.
- “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 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 were 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.”
Edu also said:
- “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 as they have individuals in all the 8,200 polling units, wards, and communities across the country.