ANEEJ calls for passage of Social Investment Bill to pull 133M Nigerians out of poverty
By: Femi Mustapha
Against the backdrop of the National Bureau of Statistics’ revelation that 133 million Nigerians are living in poverty, the Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice ANEEJ has called on the National Assembly to speedily consider the passage of the Social Investment Programme Agency Bill.
Executive Director of ANEEJ, Rev David Ugolor David Ugolor stated this in a statement made available to the media in Kaduna yesterday.
He also called on state governors and State Houses of Assembly to also take similar steps to halt the growing poverty in the country.
The CSO with a vision to reduce poverty in Nigeria further called on the Senate to expeditiously consider the letter from the President Muhammadu Buhari seeking for the legislation and Institutionalisation of the Social Investment Programme.
Ugolor noted that Nigeria cannot afford to keep over 65 percent of its population in grinding poverty, particularly those living in rural areas which constitutes 75 per cent of poor Nigerians according to figures from the NBS.
“We are worried about the growing level of poverty in the country despite efforts by various stakeholders to arrest the challenge. We know that the issue of insecurity and recent floods that ravaged many states and communities may have contributed to the spiralling poverty, but all hands must be on deck to pull as many people as possible out of poverty in Nigeria and this is not a time for the blame game,” Ugolor stated.
The ANEEJ boss called on the National Assembly to do the needful of passing the SIP Bill for the institutionalization of the four Social Investment Programmes of the Federal Government, noting that if not done, a next administration may jettison the programmes with a fiat that could worsen the poor
Ugolor equally challenged State Governors and State Houses of Assembly in the country to urgently institute policies, programmes for social protection of the poor in their states to complement efforts of the Federal Government, noting that the task of poverty eradication cannot be left to the Federal Government alone.
He commended the few states that have Social protection laws and urged others to follow suit by institutionalizing social safety nets for citizens of their states, particularly the rural dwellers, noting that Latin America and the Caribbean countries have successfully used social Investment programmes to lift millions their citizens out of poverty.
“On our part as ANEEJ, we are implementing the Enhancing Social Investment Programme in Nigeria, ESPPIN, project in five states: Edo, Delta, Ekiti, Anambra and Bayelsa. The project being supported by Bread for the World, Germany seeks to advocate for the institutionalization of Social Investment Programmes at the sub-national levels,” Ugolor stated and called on the State Governors to include social investment programmes in their priority list.
ANEEJ and its CSOs partners are independently monitoring the disbursement of $322.5 million returned Abacha loot II, which is being disbursed by the Federal Government to the poor Nigerians under the Conditional Cash Transfer as part of the Social Investment Programme. ANEEJ Monitoring Transparency and Accountability of Returned Assets (MANTRA) report show that over 1 million poor Nigerian households benefited from the disbursement of N5,000 monthly from the repatriated Abacha loot since 2018.
