No fewer than 200,000 beneficiaries of the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) thronged the Lafia Township Square on Saturday to appreciate President Muhammadu Buhari for improving the livelihoods of most poor and vulnerable persons in Nasarawa State.
The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq thanked the President at a rally in Lafia.
She said the total number of beneficiaries of N-Power, Government Enterprise Empowerment Programme, Conditional Cash Transfer, and the National Home Grown School Feeding has helped the administration to wade out of recession.
Hajiya Umar-Farouq described the NSIP as “unprecedented” in the history of governance in Nigeria, adding that the programme has helped to alleviate abject poverty in the country.
“ We have four clusters…the N-Power Programme, the Conditional Cash Transfer Programme which gives 2 million households N5,000 monthly,” she continued.
“We give N30,000 monthly to our N-Power youths and so far we have 1.5 million of them. We have also been able to target small and medium entrepreneurs and we give them surplus collateral free and interest free loans from N50,000 to N300,000 for them to start their businesses,” she explained.
On the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme, Hajiya Umar-Farouq said: “We feed Primary 1 to 3 school pupils on school days. We have close to 10 million of these pupils. Your excellency (President Buhari), these are some of the parents of these pupils we feed daily. These are some of the people who receive N5,000 monthly.”
Reporting by Hadiza Abdulrahman; Editing by Abdullahi Lamino and Tony Okerafor