The Federal Government has said about 24.3 million poor Nigerians would get N5,000 each for a period of six months.  This translates to about 29.3 percent of 82.9 million poor Nigerians receiving a total of N729bn within the six-month period.

The announcement was made by the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Farouq, at the inauguration of a Federal Government’s emergency intervention database for the urban poor. The statement read in part, “According to records, about 24.3 million poor and vulnerable individuals were identified at the end of 2020 and registered into the National Social Register.

Farouq said the intervention database was needed to develop the capacity for rapid response to any emergency including natural or man-made disasters adding that a Rapid Response Register was designed to rapidly identify, register and provide succour to people who were not previously captured in the social register.

The Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, also added that the register deployed a wholly technology-based approach, adding that it was primed to achieve an end-to-end digital foot-print in cash transfers for the urban poor.

‌”The groundbreaking success of the RRR now emboldens us to achieve our aspiration of a social security programme for a minimum of 20 million Nigerians in the next two years. This will be the largest of its kind on the continent.”

However, the National Bureau of Statistics had reported that about 40.1 percent of the estimated 200 million population of Nigerians are poor and surviving on N137,430 per year.

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