Lagos to update social register as FG harps on transparency

By Adeola Ogunrinde

Following the plan by the federal government to take 15 million poor Nigerians out of poverty level, the Lagos state government has finalised plans to revalidate names of poor Lagosians on its social register.

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

Sanwo-Olu disclosed that the state had close to one million homes on its register but would revalidate the list for more people to benefit from the programme.

He added ” The state has been able to identify the needy in our society, those who are poor.

“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”.

The minister, in her response, said that poverty alleviation was one of the eight agenda of President Bola Tinubu, adding that about 133 million Nigerians were affected by poverty and 60 million were affected by humanitarian crisis.

She commended the state government for hosting refugees, adding that 168 refugees were hosted by the state in the last three weeks.

Betta said that the Ministry had been saddled with the responsibility to take Nigerians out of poverty, adding that the federal government targets 15 million poor Nigerians who would benefit through school feeding programmes, building of shelters for the poor, loan to traders and farmers, among others.

She further said that the federal government was wary of the fund getting to the wrong hands, seeking 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”, she said.