Govt to pull 20m Nigerians out of extreme poverty in two years - Osinbajo

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo (SAN) has stated that the government under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari will pull at least 20 million citizens out of extreme poverty in the next two years.

He made the statement on Tuesday, January 19, 2020, in Abuja while virtually kick-starting a new cash transfer scheme to be facilitated via a wholly technology-based approach called the Rapid Response Register (RRR).

The new scheme is the means by which urban poor and vulnerable population can be speedily identified, using geographic satellite technology and other related means for delivering cash to households affected by the fallouts of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.

The Cash Transfer Scheme is an item under the Economic Sustainability Plan (ESP), chaired by Professor Osinbajo; it is a Federal Government-run special economic response plan to alleviate the harsh economic realities imposed by the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

A statement by Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Office of the Vice-President, Mr. Laolu Akande, said Osinbajo also noted that beyond poverty alleviation, government needed to take social security to the level of wealth creation.

“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. This (aspiration) is, at least from the perspective of this tested approach, now well within our reach.

“The only constraint, of course, is the funding, which we must look for because this country deserves a social security scheme that will not merely alleviate poverty but also create wealth for the millions of those who are waiting for this opportunity.

“Our government launched the National Social Protection Policy (NSPP) in 2017 to provide the framework for institutionalising the work we started since 2016 on reducing extreme poverty in Nigeria, based on our administration’s vision to create a comprehensive social security programme for the poor and vulnerable and thereafter the pledge to lift 100 million Nigerian’s out of poverty in ten years,” he said.