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From Okwe Obi, Abuja
When President Muhammadu Buhari established the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) in 2019, Nigerians heaved a sigh of relief with the expectations that the scheme would reduce unemployment and poverty rates.
The NSIP is made up of the N-power, National Home Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP), Government Enterprises and Empowerment Programme (GEEP), and the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT), with little components.
In 2019, the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS, ) in its report, noted that 40.1 per cent of the total population were classified as poor. In other words, on average four out of 10 individuals in Nigeria had real per capita expenditures below N137,430 per year.
This translated to over 82.9 million Nigerians who were considered poor by national standard. Four years down the line, the statistics have not changed, with stakeholders lamenting that NSIP has not achieved much to tackle poverty and despondency.
During the primaries conducted by political parties ahead of the 2023 general election, the initiative became a political pawn as a group known as Coalition of All Progressives Congress accused handlers of the scheme of using it to settle political scores.
Also, on October 4, the Nasarawa State governor, Abdullahi Sule, was quoted to have said that 349 ‘ghost’ schools were included in the Federal Government’s feeding programme.
Sule reportedly made the disclosure when he received in audience members of the Project Task Team (PTT) of the National Home-grown School Feeding Programme of the NSIP, who paid him a courtesy call at the Government House, Lafia, on September 15, to brief him on the plans for the commencement of the second phase of the pupils’ enumeration exercise in the state.
Even before then, the national coordinator of Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), Emmanuel Onwubiko, invited the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq, to a public debate for her to give an account of her stewardship.
“HURIWA is by this media communication inviting the minister for a publicly covered debate this Wednesday with HURIWA so Nigerians can be told what amount this government spent feeding schoolchildren who were dispersed and on holidays during the lockdown.
“HURIWA wants to show Nigerians that the ministry of humanitarian affairs may have fed ghosts and claimed to have fed real children. This minister should be bold enough to accept this invitation for a public debate, which we will host at a good venue.
“We are alleging that the ministry is a cash guzzling machine and a financial disaster.”
But the minister did not oblige.
Regardless of the avalanche of accusations, the ministry believes that a lot has been done to address the scourge of poverty and unemployment. Recently, the minister announced the inclusion of men in the grant for vulnerable groups programme.
During a meeting with civil society organisations and non-governmental organisations to herald the flag-off of the next round of disbursement of N20,000 to beneficiaries, the minister stated: “In line with President Muhammadu Buhari’s social inclusion, 70% of the total number of beneficiaries will be for women while the remaining 30% is for the men.
“In addition, about 15% of the total number of beneficiaries is specifically allocated to the segment of the population with special needs, including Persons with Disability (PWDs) and senior citizens in the country, forcibly displaced persons (internally displaced persons, returnees, etc), widows and orphans.
“The programme is targeted at poor rural and peri-urban women and men within the productive age of 18 and above. The programme has impacted positively on the lives of the poor and vulnerable in Nigeria.
“I have personally witnessed the life-changing experiences of people who lived below the poverty line and those that are vulnerable to shocks. The grant for vulnerable groups programme was introduced in 2020 to sustain the social inclusion agenda of President Buhari’s administration.
“It is consistent with the national target of lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years. It is designed to provide a one-off grant to some of the poorest and most vulnerable women in rural and peri-urban areas of the country.
“A cash grant of N20,000.00 will be disbursed to poor women and men across the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory. The programme is expected to improve productive activities that would generate more income and improve their living standard of the poor and vulnerable.”
Farouq further disclosed the disbursement of cash grants to vulnerable groups in Cross River and Bayelsa states. She said the NSIP has reduced the poverty index in the country to 43%.
The minister, who also launched the digitized payment for the conditional cash transfer programme and on-boarding of second stream of independent monitors programme in Cross River State, stated that the poverty index of Nigeria before the Buhari-led administration was at 70 per cent.
She added: “Since the inception of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration in 2015, when it inherited a national poverty incidence level averaging 70 per cent, the Federal Government has paid more attention to generating solutions to address the plight of the poor and vulnerable in the country despite other economic challenges.
“This informed the decision to initiate the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) as a strategy for poverty reduction and enhancing social inclusion among our people especially women in rural areas.
“I am also happy to tell you that the country’s poverty incidence has now reduced to 43% which is an achievement by this administration to reduce poverty by over 20%.”
Farouq advised the beneficiaries to make judicious use of the grant to improve their commercial activities, which will help ease them out of poverty.
