A coalition of 17 civil society organisations (CSOs), has called on the Federal Government to roll out a comprehensive social protection programme that will capture the poor and vulnerable in line with global best practices to get people out of poverty.
The CSOs made the call in a communiqué issued at the end of a two-day meeting on Petrol Subsidy Removal and Palliatives in Abuja.
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The communiqué was signed by David Ugolor, ANEEJ; Abiola Akiode of WARDC; Monday Osasah of Centre LSD; Ene Ede of Equity Advocate; Funmi Akinyele of Food Basket Nigeria; Rommy Mom of Lawyers Alert; Otive Igbuzor of Centre LSD; Nelson Nwafor of FENRAD; Tijani Abdulkareem of SERDEC and David Anyaele of CCD.
Others are Y. Z. Ya’U of CITAD; Udy Akpan of YAF; Emem Okon of KEBETKACHE; Faith Nwadishi of Centre for Transparency Advocacy (CTA); Egedegbe Edewor of VREI; Idris Miliki of CHRCR and Obialunanma Nnaobi-Ayodele of Meluibe Foundation.
The organisations expressed deep concerns over government’s initiatives to urgently cushion the harsh economic and social effect of the subsidy removal policy on the citizens.
They recommended that “strategic communication of every process and stage of the implementation of the social protection policy is critical for success, especially in a country where corruption is endemic and the trust in government is at low ebb.”
According to them, governments at federal, state and local levels should increase investments in basic education, and primary healthcare for poor Nigerians to create increased access to social services.
removal of subsidies pushed up prices of goods and services, like food stuffs, transportation costs, agricultural implements, and inputs, rent and other services, yet salaries were not increased, necessitating untold hardship, and suffering amongst the citizens.
The CSO leaders noted that social protection policies implementation combined with enlightened leadership and pressure from below has the capacity to lift people out of poverty.
“Poverty rate has increased steadily over the years in Nigeria and has degenerated to the point of ranking third in the world in 2014, to the first position in 2018 with around 87 million people and a further slide to 133million of its citizens living in multi-dimensional poverty in 2022 (National Bureau of Statistics)
“China and India for instance lifted 730 million and 170 million people respectively out of poverty between 1990 and 2015.
“While social protection has been acknowledged across the world as a veritable way to reduce poverty, in line with this, there is a need to update the Nigeria Social Register (NSR) and create awareness on the process of its compilation and the names on the register,” the communiqué read in part.