We’re still lifting 100m people out of poverty – FG reassures

OBINNA EZUGWU

Nigeria’s federal government has restated its resolve to lift 100 million people out of poverty in 10 years.

Minister of State Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Ikanada Agba, gave the reassurance on Tuesday during a Breakfast Dialogue on United Nations joint funds for social protection to accelerate implementation of sustainable development goals.

He said the President Muhammadu Buhari administration is implementing the current Social Protection Policy which ends this year.

Some of these programmes under the National Social Investment Programme at the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs are N-Power, Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP), Home Grown School Feeding.

According to him, others are being driven by the Ministry of Labour such as the Social Security scheme. Agba also said the Federal Ministry of Health is anchoring the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) while other MDAs are implementing others.

Also speaking, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajiya Sadiya Farouq, said poverty is about wellbeing, which encompasses hunger, malnutrition, limited access to education, health care, basic social services, among others and that the government was focused on curbing them.