ABDULLAHI MUSA, a public, social policy analyst, writes from Area 11, Abuja
The creation of the Ministry of Humanitarian affairs, disaster management and social development by President Muhammadu Buhari in August 2019 saw the birth of the National Social Investment Programme, NSIP under the leadership of its pioneer Minister, Hon. Sadia Umar Farouq.
NSIP, as a project that was created to change the lives of millions of Nigerians living in extreme poverty, upgrade their standard of living and improve the economy of the country, has gone a long way in achieving its objective of establishment.
Undoubtedly, the National Social Investment programme, NSIP and indeed its baby, the National Social Register, NSR is a living document that is still ‘work in progress’.
Indeed the NSR represents the international best practice for targeting the poor and vulnerable people of any nation for upliftment of their lives.
With the coming of President Tinubu into the helm of affairs of the country, the administration saw the need to tinker with the NSIP which hitherto has impacted on the lives of millions of Nigerians.
Most surprisingly, even the Nigerian Governors’ Forum, NGF under the umbrella of the National economic Council, NEC talked about the existence and continuing utility of the National Social Register, NSR of the Poor and Vulnerable Households, PVHHs in Nigeria. The council even described it as one “lacking credibility”.
In addition, the NSR is the result of a decidedly deliberate effective collaboration mechanism between the federal government and 36 states and the FCT that commenced with the signing of Memorandum of Understanding, MOU between NASSCO and each of the 36 states plus the FCT. The NSR is an aggregate of the respective State Social Registers, SSRs of the 37 entities.
The SSRs, were each generated by respective State Operations Coordinating Units, SOCU of NASSCO in all the states of the federation, including the FCT, which are managed under the respective states’ Ministries responsible for planning, and also manned by personnel drawn from the civil service bureaucracy of each state.
It is actually the various SOCU offices domiciled at the subnational level, through their respective state – level personnel, that are deployed to carry out the task identifying the PVHHs in the targeted communities at the selected Local Government Areas, LGAs, Wards and Communities that have carefully been identified and ranked. This is done in conjunction with a multi– sectoral team at the LGA level by way of geographical or poverty targeting, using the poverty headcount generated from the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS national Multidimensional Poverty Index, MPI survey, and high – resolution poverty maps on satellite imagery.
It gives one serious concern that despite the trillions of Naira spent in this programme so far, the extent of the multi sectoral collaboration in arriving and creating a database if the poverty level of the country and list of beneficiaries, the NGF is raising the alarm that the register is nit credible.
Towards actualising its determination to do away with this current register, Dr Betta Edu, the current minister of humanitarian affairs and poverty alleviation, has flagged off the verification of names on the national social register in Lagos suburbs.
But Edu had promised to partner with states to verify all names on the register to reflect the citizens who are most vulnerable.
Looking like Betta Edu is on a war mission to dismantle everything under the NSIP. She has made many uncomplimentary comments about the NSIP and its ‘babies’ indicating that the country’s cherished NSR is facing extinction. What the NSR and indeed the NSIP needs most is improvements and not dumping or discarding. The NSR as it is today is 100% credible..
A former Executive Secretary of NEITI and a journalist, Waziri Adio, has described the national social register, NSR as ‘comprehensive and robust.’
On July 20, the National Economic Council, NEC, presided over by Vice-President Kashim Shettima, resolved to dump the national social register compiled under Muhammadu Buhari, the immediate past President, for lacking credibility.
“That is far from the truth. If you look at the process of putting the register together, the structure for gathering information in the register as well as the methodology used for the register, you will find out that this is a register that is comprehensive, robust and the process is participatory and decentralised”, Adio added.
Speaking to journalists after NEC’s meeting recently, Chukwuma Soludo, governor of Anambra state, said NEC agreed that states should develop their own registers using formal and informal means. One wonders which states is Governor Soludo talking about?
Methinks that what VP, Kashim Shetima’s NEC and Minister Betta Edu need to do with NSIP and NSR are re invigoration, sustenance and continuity and not to discredit it by leveraging on the foresight of former President Buhari in setting it up. No more, no less.
A solid policy foundation in NSIP for kicking poverty out of the country has been laid and so all hands must be on deck to perfect it and not dump it and start afresh. This amounts to waste of the country’s meagre resources.
NEC and Minister Betta Edu must tread softly, softly and move this country forward since the NSR and indeed the NSIP have come a long way.
