The Federal Government has announced plans to distribute N75,000 cash transfers to an estimated 70 million ‘poorest of the poor’ Nigerians by 2025.
This was disclosed by Prof. Nentawe Yilwatda, Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction, during his appearance on The Morning Show on Arise Television on Wednesday.
Prof. Yilwatda revealed that the ministry aims to deploy the program across all 36 states of the federation by the end of January 2025, targeting the registration of up to 18.1 million Nigerian households through the National Identity Number (NIN) system.
“We want to deploy by the end of January across 36 states to ensure we start harvesting the NIN number of up to 18.1 million Nigerian households that we need to capture as fast as possible so that we can make payment for them,” the minister said.
“The target of the president is that we should target 15 million households. And an average household is about 4 to 5. We are discussing here roughly about 70 million households with about N75,000 per person this year,” the minister noted.
The initiative is part of President Bola Tinubu’s directive to address extreme poverty and create a more inclusive social safety net.
Yilwatda noted that each household in the program would have an average of 4 to 5 individuals, translating to a target of roughly 70 million individuals nationwide.
Driving Digital Inclusion for the Poor
The program will also enhance the digital identities of low-income Nigerians by collaborating with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to increase NIN registrations. According to Yilwatda, this will help streamline the process and ensure the most vulnerable populations are included in the database.
“We are doing the data capturing, but for now, the poorest of the poor that we have in our data is only 1.4 million with NIN. We are working with NIMC, deploying resources, and conducting training. NIMC has brought in more devices under a program with the World Bank to assist us in data capturing for those without NIN numbers.”
The Minister detailed ongoing efforts, saying, “We are training in some states like Rivers, Kwara, Abuja, and Nasarawa, among others, and deploying to these states in the first round. By the end of January, we want to deploy across the 36 states to start capturing the NIN numbers of up to 18.1 million households. This will enable us to make payments to them for Conditional Cash Transfers.”
The minister emphasized the importance of leveraging technology to make the cash transfer program efficient, transparent, and accountable. He added that digital registration would reduce errors, improve tracking, and ensure that funds are disbursed to those most in need.
What you should know
On January 12, 2024, President Bola Tinubu suspended all programs managed by the National Social Investment Programme Agency (NSIPA) and the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation due to allegations of misappropriation, including those under the direct cash transfer initiative.
Earlier, on January 8, 2024, President Tinubu had suspended Betta Edu, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, over allegations of funds mismanagement within NSIPA.
