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Many Nigerians seem to believe that one of the mistakes made by President Muhammadu Buhari in constituting his cabinet a second time in 2019 was the creation of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development. Many also believe that it will be the first casualty of any government that comes after the Buhari administration. Their reason is that the ministry has repeatedly advertised itself as lacking in objectives other than sharing money to the supposedly poorest of the poor. Many Nigerians have asked to know the specific objective and core mandate of the ministry. They are, as characteristic of government, ignored.
Prior to its creation, issues of disaster management were domiciled with the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), while the issue of National Social Investment Programme, including, N-Power, Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP) and the National Homegrown School Feeding Programme (NHSFP), created by the All Progressive Congress (APC), were domiciled in the office of the Vice President. NEMA still leads in delivering services and relief materials to victims of disaster, but it has become less effective.
Soon after President Buhari’s nationwide address towards the management of the Covid-19 situation in Nigeria, the minister in charge of that ministry, Sadiya Umar Farouq, began giving out cash to beneficiaries in what many on social media termed “cash-sharing-spree.” She was shown in several pictures sharing cash, at N20,000 each, at Kwali Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory. Speaking at Kwali, the Minister said: “This initiative has been ongoing for the past five years. It is an exercise geared towards supporting the poor and vulnerable households of our society and we give them monthly stipends of N5,000 and now that we have restriction, Mr. President has directed that we give them two months’ payments. So, we are here today to carry out that directive of paying two months stipend.”
She also updated her Twitter handle with pictures of the exercise. Above the pictures, she wrote: “Today, I visited Kwali LGA of the FCT to inspect the payment of conditional cash transfers beneficiaries as part of His Excellency President Muhammadu Buhari special intervention for Covid-19.” In all, she disclosed that 1.2 million Nigerians would benefit from the cash sharing though there are serious but unanswered questions about the actual number. Some put the figure at 1.6m. These are persons categorized as poorest of the poor. However, pictures from the Kwali cash sharing centre have continued to agitate minds as many insist that images on the pictures failed to convince that those who got the cash were actually among the poorest of the poor.
Besides, for 1.2 million, or more, Nigerians getting N20,000 each, it meant that about N24 billion was approved for sharing and has been shared out. This comes to about N6 billion monthly. In one year, the amount would hit about N72 billion. However, there are questions of transparency as to how the money rose to N20,000 each. In his broadcast, the President ordered payment of two months, as also admitted by the minister. That would amount to N10,000 each. But N20,000 which translates to four months was paid to each recipient. Some sources at the Ministry said the four months’ payment covered the months of March to June 2020. For this reason, N24 billion was spent, on a fraction of the population, by a country which has been all over the world borrowing to rebuild critical infrastructure, upgrade its health facilities and even pay salary of workers. It is presently begging the IMF for a loan of $6.9 billion at a time every global lender is challenged for funds because of Covid-19.
In the $22.7 billion loan plan, already approved by the National Assembly, before it was suspended at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Ministry of Humanitarian, Disaster Management and Social Development had a share of $800,000,000, that should be about N288 billion, for what was called “social inclusion and welfare advancement project”. Some documents interpret that to be the National Social Safety Net Project. In other words, this amount was to be borrowed and shared to those Nigerians tagged ‘most vulnerable”. The refusal however, to disclose the criteria for selecting those called the most vulnerable, or even publish their identities on a website for ease of verification, as demanded by many over social media spaces, makes the policy opaque and subject to deep suspicion by many Nigerians.
Besides, the mode of releasing the stipends to beneficiaries creates more image issues for Nigeria and its government. Many wonder how a government that had been consistent in pushing its policy of cashless transactions, which most Nigerians appreciate and applaud, moved ahead to make rubbish of the policy by laying out such cash on the table and sharing it to beneficiaries. Was that a suggestion that previous payments to beneficiaries were in cash? This process leaves a lot to the imagination. It also says a lot about the Nigerian leadership in its relationship with its own rules.
However, while the mode of giving out the cash begs for improvement, there seems to be a preponderance of opinion that sharing money, the way it has been done under the conditional cash transfer policy, has not been effective in lifting any Nigerian out of poverty. While this policy was in operation, Nigeria hit the global rank as the number one poverty capital of the world. What this translates into is that there are more people in Nigeria who cannot boast of the next meal or water to drink or shelter. So, how is the N5,000 monthly lifting the beneficiaries out of poverty? It also needs explaining how the cash transfers have added value to family life and to living in the face of rising suicide cases. A 2016 report of the World Health Organisation (WHO) puts suicide rate in Nigeria, in 2016, at 17,710, making Nigeria rank highest in Africa and sixth globally on the suicide index.
Besides, the narrative on the streets of Nigeria shows growing frustration among many Nigerians, some of who are driven to depression by very bad economic realities that have caused social disjointedness, broken families, failed projections and alienation from existential realities. This is made worse by loss of jobs, under-employment and unemployment, which further erode the purchasing power of many such that they can no longer meet daily expectations. The reality of this situation was exposed by the Covid-19 pandemic. With the lockdown in Abuja, Lagos and Ogun states, and the closure of state boundaries, many Nigerians turned into Almajiri overnight on Twitter, where they turned to every crowd-chaser for alms in the guise of give-away. Some went to the Twitter handle of prominent Nigerians and organisations with ‘oga, do give-away’ requests.
While social media walls provide some kind of identity shield, the number of those begging for money on social media could be a fraction of the number of Nigerians on the street without an idea of where the next meal would come from. This is a challenge that confronts the leadership in Nigeria. It is a challenge that calls for a review of the effectiveness of the policy to transfer N5,000 monthly to some Nigerians. This has become necessary given that Nigeria has, since 2016, budgeted N500 billion each year, to fund the social investment policy. This brings total amount pumped into that programme to above N2 trillion till date. This is why many people are worried because it would seem that Nigeria borrows money from across the world only to come back and flush it into sewage. Simply put, the programme is shadowy and begs for explanation. This is the reason the leadership of the National Assembly, also of the same political party, is screaming and calling for review.
Like many, I don’t see how sustainable that policy is. Therefore, it creates a demand: the demand for creative and transformational minds that will work Nigeria out of the poverty index. This is not the calling of many. It is a call for the engagement of professionals with the right skill set to work the task ahead outside the fixed box. Otherwise, Nigeria’s crumble will be resounding. And I guess that is why even the mind that ordered the universe into being created humans into a void earth and implanted in them different talents and expertise, then asked them to make things happen for themselves. A few of such minds he created found themselves in places that they eventually reshaped, and built. Those are the places we and our leaders now run to for holidays, education, healthcare and even banking.
Guess where the rest went to!
