VP Professor Yemi Osinbajo

The Buhari administration is already forging ahead with its plans to spend N500billion on social welfare,  by launching  a community-based single register of the poor and vulnerable aimed at reducing extreme poverty in the country.

Mrs Maryam Uwais, the Special Adviser to the President on Social Investment launched the register on behalf of the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo  at the end of a three-day Social Protection Cross-Learning Conference in Abuja.

The Vice President said that about 120 million Nigerians, representing 60 per cent of the population, live on less than two dollars per day.

“For us as a government, tackling this problem is crucial to ensuring inclusive growth where all Nigerians are part of the country’s development process.

“In our resolve to address this problem, we decided to formulate a National Social Safety Net Programme (NASSAP) which is a single register that will remove errors of inclusion and exclusion.

“ It will also insulate beneficiaries selection from political influence and traditional distortions,’’ Osinbajo said.

He said the single register was established on the basis of a well-thought out community-based targeting approach where communities would be able to identify the poor households from amongst them.

Osinbajo said a manual had been developed that would guide the establishment of the register of the poor.

He said it would guide them to ensure that state governments, development partners and other interested organisations have confidence in the process.

“This platform can then be utilised for their own interventions given our current limited resources, the need to maximise the benefits of the use of single register cannot be overemphasised.’’

Meanwhile, information obtained by NAN on the single resister manual for poor and vulnerable indicate that it would redress the inability of previous efforts to address poverty.

The manual indicated that first round of the single register established across seven states of Bauchi, Cross River, Kogi, Kwara, Niger, Osun and Oyo was a product of Youth Employment and Social Support Operations (YESSO).

The three-day conference was organised by National Social Safety Nets Coordinating Office (NASSCO).

NASSCO is under the Office of the Vice President and it is working in collaboration with Youth Employment and Social Support Operation of the Federal Ministry of Finance.