Poverty alleviation: Lagos set to revalidate social register — Sanwo-Olu

 

Lagos State Governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has said the state government will revalidate names of poor Lagosians on its social register, following a plan by the Federal Government to take 15 million poor Nigerians out of poverty.

Governor Sanwo-Olu made this known on Saturday when the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr. Betta Edu paid him a courtesy visit at the Lagos House, Marina.

The governor, who noted that the state had so far been able to identify “the needy in our society,” told the minister that close to 1 million homes were already listed on its register but would revalidate the list for more people to benefit from the Federal Government’s plan.

“We don’t want to lose focus. We have seen that poverty alleviation is critical. There are benefits in ensuring the agenda of the Federal Government works with our agenda so as to give our people a better life,” Sanwo-Olu said.

Responding, the minister said poverty alleviation is one of the 8-point Agenda of President Bola Tinubu, pointing out that 133 million Nigerians were affected by poverty, while another 60 million had been affected by the humanitarian crisis.

Edu said the ministry had been saddled with the responsibility to take Nigerians out of poverty, and commended Lagos State government for hosting 168 refugees, adding 168 refugees in the last three weeks.

The minister said the Federal Government was targeting 15 million poor Nigerians who would benefit through school feeding programmes, the building of shelters for the poor, and loans to traders and farmers, among others, but quickly added that the government was wary of the fund getting to the wrong hands such as the political class.

She, however, sought the cooperation of the state government, especially in the verification of the number of vulnerable people in the state.

“We want you to lead the process to ensure the people on the list are the real people. We want to give money to Nigerians, but we don’t want it to get to the political class. We want to ensure the money gets to the right people that are really poor,” the minister said.

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