The Nigerian government has announced plans to distribute N75,000 to approximately 70 million of the nation’s poorest citizens in 2025.
This initiative, spearheaded by the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction, Professor Nentawe Yilwatda, aims to alleviate extreme poverty and strengthen social safety nets under President Bola Tinubu’s directive.
The program targets about 15 million households, each comprising an average of four to five individuals.
These households will be identified using the National Identity Number (NIN) system, with a goal of registering up to 18.1 million households across all 36 states by January.
“We want to deploy by the end of January across 36 states to ensure we start harvesting the NIN number of up to 18.1 million Nigerian households that we need to capture as fast as possible so that we can make payment for them.
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“The target of the President is that we should target 15 million households. And an average household is about 4 to 5. We are discussing here roughly about 70 million households with about N75,000 per person this year,” the minister noted.
The ministry is working in partnership with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to expedite NIN registrations and ensure the funds reach the most vulnerable Nigerians.
Training and deployment of personnel are already underway in states like Rivers, Kwara, Abuja, and Nasarawa to support this process.
“We are doing the data capturing, but for now, the poorest of the poor that we have in our data is only 1.4 million with NIN. We are working with NIMC, deploying resources, and conducting training. NIMC has brought in more devices under a program with the World Bank to assist us in data capturing for those without NIN numbers.
“We are training in some states like Rivers, Kwara, Abuja, and Nasarawa, among others, and deploying to these states in the first round. By the end of January, we want to deploy across the 36 states to start capturing the NIN numbers of up to 18.1 million households. This will enable us to make payments to them for Conditional Cash Transfers.” Mr. Yilwatda said.
This initiative follows the suspension of previous social welfare programs under the National Social Investment Programme Agency (NSIPA) due to allegations of mismanagement.
By adopting digital tools and data-driven methods, the government hopes to ensure transparency and accountability in this new phase of social welfare.
