The Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development was created by President Muhammadu Buhari on August 21, 2019, with Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouq as its pioneer minister. In this report, PAUL OKAH takes a look at the performance of the ministry amidst the Covid-19 pandemic.
The ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development is about one of the important ministries saddled with the responsibility of taking care of the less privileged, disaster victims and ensuring the development of the country, especially with regards to the alleviation of poverty.
Upon its creation on August 21, 2019, a number of agencies were brought under the supervision of the ministry. They include the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRMI), National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), North East Development Commission (NEDC), the National Commission for Persons with Disabilities (NCPD) and Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Sustainable Development Goals (OSSAP-SDGs).
Apart from the aforementioned agencies, the ministry equally handles the National Social Investment Programmes (NSIPs), which were created via a Presidential Directive in 2016 by President Muhammadu Buhari, aimed at achieving macroeconomic stability as a key execution priority for the Nigerian government as identified in the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) and have four programmes, including the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP), Job Creation Unit (N-Power), Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) and Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP).
In fact, the importance of the ministry was particularly highlighted during the Covid-19 pandemic, when it was saddled with the responsibility of distributing palliatives to Nigerians locked down at home in different states across the country, though it has since undertaken other responsibilities, including the education of over 12 million Nigerians under the Alternate School Programme (ASP), making a case for the economic emancipation of persons living with disabilities (PWDs), among others.
Nevertheless, though the ministry will be celebrating two years of existence in August, from all indications, it has not been smooth sailing for the minister, with daily records of disasters, growing unemployment and poverty; with Nigerians expectedly demanding for more.
Covid-19 interventions
By this time last year, Nigerians were groaning under the lockdown imposed on Ogun, Lagos, and the FCT by President Buhari, apart from similar restrictions by state governments in the wake of the all-conquering Covid-19 pandemic. Economic activities were grounded during the lockdown, especially with markets and businesses on their knees. Nigerians were forced to choose between three ‘unavoidable evils’ of contracting the virus, dying of hunger or, worse still, suffering in the hands of overzealous security agents.
Worried about the sufferings of Nigerians during the lockdown, especially complaints of hunger, President Buhari mandated the ministry to distribute palliatives to as many homes as possible, starting with Lagos, Ogun, and the FCT, with almost all the states receiving trailer loads of different food items for onward distribution to residents.
In fact, the ministry was particularly active during the lockdown, with Farouq commonly called by many Nigerians as “minister of palliatives.”
On April 22, last year, Farouq handed over palliatives to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Malam Mohammed Musa Bello, for onward distribution to the vulnerable and the poorest of the poor in the Territory; these included 10 trucks of rice, two trucks of vegetable oil and grains from the national reserve.
Donating the items at the NYSC Permanent Orientation Camp, Kubwa, Abuja, the minister said the president had directed that the palliatives be distributed to the vulnerable and poorest of the poor in the FCT, in order to ameliorate the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
She said: “In view of the hardships citizens face as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari, has directed my Ministry to distribute palliatives to states experiencing lockdown, like Ogun, Lagos, and the FCT. Today, I present some relief materials to the FCTA and implore the minister to consider especially the poor and vulnerable, including persons living with disabilities, to cushion the effects of the economic crisis as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“This is a very sensitive period in the history of our country and the world. However, as we work together to confront the Covid-19 pandemic, I am hopeful we will prevail and leverage the crisis to build our great nation. However, due to logistics issues, some of the palliatives are still on the way, but the FCTA will be notified to claim them once they arrive.”
Accepting the donations, FCT minister expressed gratitude to the president for remembering the plight of FCT residents and promised to ensure that the palliatives got to the intended beneficiaries.
“I am grateful to President Buhari. I appealed to the Honourable Minister of Humanitarian Affairs for more palliatives because we have many poor and vulnerable people in the FCT, and she didn’t hesitate to grant my request. With the help of the FCT minister of State, the palliatives will get to the beneficiaries like we did in Abaji,” he said.
Conditional cash transfer
Also, in order to cushion the effects of the pandemic, the ministry embarked on the distribution of N20, 000 each to different households under the conditional cash transfer programme, an offshoot of the NSIP.
The ministry flagged off the distribution on April 1, 2020, with 190 beneficiaries receiving N20, 000 each in Kwali area council in the FCT and more than 748,684 beneficiaries receiving N20, 000 each for two months in advance in different states before the end of that year. Even after the lockdown, the federal government flagged off the Special Cash Grant for Rural Women, with thousands of beneficiaries from different states receiving N20, 000 each.
Similarly, the GEEP is aimed at providing access to financial services (loans) to traders, market women, artisans, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), as well as enterprising youth, farmers and agricultural workers through Trader Moni, Market Moni, and Farmer Moni.
However, a three-month moratorium was directed by the president for all GEEP loans, and the ministry implemented the directive accordingly by suspending loan repayments of about 1.8 million beneficiaries of the programme for a period of three months last year.
The home-grown school feeding programme
On February 4, this year, the government flagged off the training of 5,000 Independent Monitors for the NSIPs, to supervise the implementation of the programmes in communities across the country, including the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSF). It, however, warned that those who engage in any form of malpractice or fraud would be handed over to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for prosecution.
And following the closure of schools nationwide, as a result of the lockdown, the ministry had to modify NHGSF to ensure that primary one to three pupils received rations of food on a daily basis.
Speaking at the Presidential Task Force Briefing on Covid-19 in Abuja on August 3, last year, Farouq disclosed that the government had spent about N523.3 million on the programme during the lockdown. She said further that the programme was modified and implemented in three states following a March 29 presidential directive, with each take-home ration valued at N4, 200 and that the figure was arrived at with proper consultations. According to her, the figure was generated from statistics provided by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
N-power
The federal government created the N-power programme as part of the National Social Investment Programmes (NSIP), where each beneficiary is paid N30, 000 on a monthly basis for two years, but the ministry took over the running of the programme last year. After the two-year period, some beneficiaries of Batch A and Batch B of the programme established businesses in their communities, with more than 109,823 beneficiaries identifying themselves as business-owners before the end of 2020.
Even so, on March 11, this year, after more than eight months, the government officially launched the Batch ‘C’ N-Power programme aimed at lifting Nigerians out of poverty. During a press briefing and launch of the Batch ‘C’ N-power on the National Social Investment Management Systems (NASIMS) in Abuja, Farouq said one million beneficiaries would benefit from the Batch, though structured into Streams One and Two.
She said applications had been developed for beneficiaries to be able to receive N30, 000 stipends on a monthly basis and to interact with government officials in order to address possible abnormalities and resolve concerns.
“The N-power programme provides young Nigerians an opportunity for employment since its inception in 2016 under Batch A and B, with about 500,000 beneficiaries catered for. Today, we have reached another milestone in the process of recruiting and onboarding of the Batch ‘C’ N-Power beneficiaries beginning with 500,000 beneficiaries.
“The N-power Batch ‘C’, as launched today, is structured to onboard 1 million new beneficiaries, beginning with an initial 500,000 beneficiaries in the first stream, and a subsequent 500,000 in a second stream, all aligned to the national policy drive of lifting 100 million people out of abject poverty in 10 years,” she said.
Disasters, the interventions
During the rainy season last year, floods ravaged different states across the country with, attendant loss of lives and property and the ministry provided relief materials to affected communities through NEMA. But apart from the floods, fire disasters, accidents, insecurity, and other factors led to the ministry being constantly on its toes to provide palliatives or relief materials to victims.
Natural and man-made environmental disasters, especially fire disasters, led to issues of displacement and distorted development in several parts of the country, while the effects of the lockdown are still being felt till this day.
Nevertheless, on October 13, last year, during the inaugural inter-ministerial meeting for the development of national flood emergency preparedness and response plan in Abuja, Farouq disclosed plans by the ministry to develop a national, multi-sectoral flood emergency preparedness and response plan towards disaster risk reduction of flooding hazards in the country.
NSIPs’ expansion
On January 18, Farouq said President Buhari had approved the expansion of the National Social Investment Programmes (NSIPs) to accommodate more primary school pupils, traders, graduates, farmers, among others. Speaking in Abuja during the 4th Annual Review of the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP), she said, “Following the approval of increment in the number of beneficiaries, the NHGSFP will include additional 5 million pupils, including children in non-conventional educational settings, the N-Power programme will create jobs for one million beneficiaries, the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programmes (GEEP) will provide loans to an additional one million traders, farmers and market people, while the social register is also being expanded to accommodate an additional one million households.”
From a document obtained from the ministry by our reporter, as of February 28, this year, 6,969,230 households were captured under the National Social Register, with 29,766,599 persons also captured, while the ministry hopes to add 4,000,000 households and 20,000,000 persons to the Social Register later on.
Also, the ministry is to pay 1,000,000 households captured under CCT, with 5,600,000 persons captured under CCT and 1,000,000 additional households
to be added to the CCT, with 5,600,000 persons to be added later on.
Similarly, as of the time of filing this report, N20,000 each was shared to women in over 30 states of the federation.
The challenges
Speaking at a ministerial press briefing in Abuja on November 30, Farouq said the ministry had challenges bordering on funding, but expressed gratitude to President Buhari for her appointment, and gave the assurance that there would be more interventions in the lives of downtrodden Nigerians.
She said, “The ministry’s mission is to coordinate, promote and strengthen social systems that provide support for humanitarian needs and integrating best practices, mechanisms and solutions through effective utilisation of data, research and planning.
“It was in view of the prevailing humanitarian situation and social challenges in the country that Mr. President, in his wisdom, deemed it fit to create a ministry that would institutionalise all the governments’ efforts towards social inclusion and response to disasters and humanitarian crisis, while providing the much-needed coordination of humanitarian interventions.
“So far, for the one year we have been in existence, I would say it has been an eventful, challenging and rewarding journey. Challenging in the sense that the ministry is saddled with the responsibility of overseeing responsibilities that were hitherto domiciled in other MDAs and also providing the much-needed coordination of humanitarian interventions in Nigeria.
“Nevertheless, it is rewarding; in the sense that when we visit the field and see beneficiaries whose lives are being changed by the federal government humanitarian interventions, it leaves us with a sense of fulfilment that we are doing something worthwhile for humanity.
“In spite of seemingly daunting and often demanding situations, the ministry and its agencies have provided humanitarian interventions and proactively developed structures to prevent and mitigate disasters. All these, while building socio-economic resilience through the evolution of inclusive social safety net programmes.
“Inasmuch as the ministry has done quite a lot in delivering on its mandate, it is still facing numerous challenges, such as funding. Nevertheless, it is my duty to make sure that these challenges do not impede our efforts to build a sustainable social protection apparatus that will protect our most vulnerable citizens and restore hope to the hopeless. I, therefore, reiterate the commitment of actualising our efforts of promoting human dignity.”
N-power beneficiaries speak
Some of the beneficiaries of the N-power programme, in separate interviews with Blueprint Weekend, stated how they have been lifted from poverty by the ministry’s initiatives.
According to a fresh graduate, Angela Mojisola Nabu, the programme has helped in lifting her from poverty and has given her a sense of belonging in society.
“I am a graduate of Ladoke Akintola University, where I studied Agriculture. I wanted to go into fish farming, but was not sure how to go about it. When I learnt about N-power, I decided to apply and was enrolled into the programme without knowing anyone or being connected to anyone. The selection was clear and free.
“I gained practical experience working with the Ogun State Agricultural Development Programme Ilaro Zone (OGADEP). I was able to save some money from the stipends to start my fish farm. Today, I have 12 ponds. I have people working for me and I have trained one IT student and I am willing to train more,” she said.
Likewise, a beneficiary from Katsina state and a graduate of Ahmadu Bello University, Saddiq Mustapha, said he was idle after his National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), but registered and was also admitted into the programme on merit.
He said by virtue of the experience gained and training in video production and editing, he has set up a multimedia company and runs the largest online media business in Katsina state with thousands of followers.
Similarly, a physically challenged graduate from Plateau state, Ali Dapil, told this reporter that he had gone through a lot of discrimination. However, he applied for N-Teach and was sent to Gindiri DEM as his Place of Primary Assignment. He said he was also provided a device to aid him, expressing gratitude to the federal government and the ministry for the opportunity.
CCT beneficiary’s take
A beneficiary of the N20, 000 conditional cash transfer, Mrs. Sarah Gadaga, who hails from Nasarawa state, but lives in Kwali area council of the FCT, told Blueprint Weekend that the money will be of great help to her family of three and petty business.
“I just received N20, 000 from the federal government, under the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development under the conditional cash transfer programme. I have three children; so the money will be of great help to my family, especially at this period of economic hardship. I am grateful to President Muhammadu Buhari for this intervention. He has just saved many lives,” she said.
