Nearly 90m Nigerians live in extreme poverty ― Minister

Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Mrs  Sadiya Umar Farouq, on Monday, expressed the resolve of the present administration towards lifting 90 million in extreme poverty across the country.

She disclosed this while presenting the 2020 budget estimates worth N44.21 billion for the approval of the House Committee on Internally Displaced Persons and Refugees chaired by Hon. Mohammed Jega.

Mrs. Farouq pledged the resolve of the new ministry towards strengthening coordination of humanitarian and disaster management efforts by multiple stakeholders, affirming that the Ministry has enormous responsibility to address some of the underlying causes, drivers and consequences of humanitarian crises and underdevelopment including relatively high poverty of nearly half (90 million) of the country’s 198 million population live in extreme poverty.

Speaking before the House Committee on Women Affairs, Hon. Oriyomi Onanuga pledged resolve to address “relatively high unemployment (at 23.2%) with over 40 million unemployed or underemployed; the high number of. persons of concern (including over 2 million IDPs, 230,000 Nigerian refugees in Niger, Chad and Cameroon and 45,000 refugees in Nigeria; 22 million persons with disabilities; over 14 million persons in one form of drug and substance abuse or the other and growing needs of the elderly and vulnerable groups”.

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Breakdown of the proposed budget for National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and  Internally Displaced Persons include N474,306,285 for personnel, N165 million for resettlement of IDPs in the North East and Bakkasi returnees in the 2020 budget proposal.

Others include: N15 million for 1,000 IDPs enrolment into NHIS; N105 million for renovation/rent of 21,000,000 per state; N60 million Back to school fees; N105 million for drilling of borehole; N184 million for securing land for relocation and reintegration of IDPs in FCT, Nasarawa states and N110 million for 2,200 families as return assistance to North East, among others.

In his remarks, Hon. Mohammed Jega who pledged to justify the confidence reposed in the Committee by Nigerians assured that the budget will impact positively on every Nigerian both individually and collectively.

“We are therefore poised for collaborative action with the Executive arm of government to ensure that we design a performing budget that will meet the expectations of the teeming populace,” he stated.

Hon. Jega also applauded the resolution of President Muhammadu Buhari for creating the Ministry with the view to address the numerous humanitarian challenges confronting the citizenry as a result of insurgency, arm bandits and other humanitarian challenges affecting the country.