N5000 stipend – as the poor windfall

However exciting, we need to note that this innovation is not original to the Buhari Administration. In March, just as the drums of change were sounding loudly, the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) let it be known that it would now “be saddled with the responsibility of providing social security to the aged and […]

However exciting, we need to note that this innovation is not original to the Buhari Administration. In March, just as the drums of change were sounding loudly, the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) let it be known that it would now “be saddled with the responsibility of providing social security to the aged and unemployed in addition to the implementation of Employee Compensation scheme”. A new amendment, had been passed by the two chambers of the National Assembly on the 14th January 2015, and presented to President Goodluck Jonathan for assent.
Chairman, Board of directors of NSITF, Ngozi Olejeme, credited the step to the unrelenting effort of President Jonathan to improve the welfare of workers and vulnerable groups. President Goodluck Jonathan may have given assent to the bill before he departed, thus settling a fundamental requirement in providing such a social security safety net. An enabling law is crucial and it is hoped there exists the law that serves as basis. With an enabling law, it would then be possible to hold the Government to its promise and commitment and ensure implementation and accountability. Obviously, the promise is based on a well thought out concept since the Vice President affirmed that it was to keep “one of the most striking promises we made during the campaign……… the payment of Five Thousand Naira to the poorest Nigerians across the country”. Giving baseline data he credited to the World Bank, VP Osinbajo declared that “about 112 million (66% of Nigerians) are deemed extremely poor, living on less than US$1.25 per day.
Definitely this has been a fundamental development since without doubt, one of Nigeria’s most severe challenges is unemployment particularly among the youth, the aged, and vulnerable groups. World over, the critical challenge of governments remains how to address and reduce the spate of citizen unemployment, more so Nigeria which upon finding oil, abandoned all other natural resources; relying and depending on this one economic mainstay.
Even agriculture was abandoned to the point that food imports were a necessity to ensure that the nation fed itself. That agriculture engaged over 80% of the nation’s population was a mere lip service. The demographies owing to rural-urban migration, and male/female, youth/aged are scary. Youth who were expected to graduate and cater for their aged parents are in today’s situation, still dependent on the parents, themselves suffering life-threatening diseases like hypertension, diabetes, cancer, and general vital organ failures. Now more used to failed Government promises nationwide, Nigerians have been sceptical about the likelihood of this promise coming to fruition. Even the statutory entitlement of salary for the civil service has failed, how can anyone nurse hopes of this promise being achievable? Besides, all past efforts to address the needs of the poor and unemployed afterall, have come to naught, have they not? Poverty and unemployment have remained, runaway challenges, running wild. And now to cap it all, President Muhammadu Buhari has revealed that he met an empty treasury, and huge debts to deal with.
Across the country, the loud cry of new Governors is the same. Jigawa State under Sule Lamido was the first to institutionalize this approach when the State Governor signed into law, the social security bill that formally brought the physically challenged individuals into the social mainstream of governmental activities across Jigawa State.
The social security bill, believed to be the first of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa , guaranteed a stipend of N7, 500 to no fewer than 2,700 physically challenged persons monthly in the state. At inception, many were sceptical just as the case is now, but it worked and is still well in place. Linkages with effective skills acquisition schemes, application of practical home grown solutions for food security through local production ensured that there was synergy in social security interventions.
In the defunct Gongola State, the then Military Governor Col. Yohana Madaki had instituted a unique Manpower Reserved Corps Scheme. All graduates upon completion of their tour of duty in the National Youth Service Corps, registered at the Manpower Reserve Corps and were paid a monthly stipend. They were deployed to Ministries and Departments relevant to their qualifications. Spill over candidates were passed on even to the private sector and were monitored until gainful employments were secured. Even under President Goodluck Jonathan, the SURE-P, Graduate Internship Scheme (GIS), YOUWIN,  and other similar safety nets have attempted to address the challenge of poverty and unemployment. In 2011, the unemployment rate was given as 23.9%; which implied 40 million citizens affected ( source: National Planning Data). Then, the National Bureau of Statistics gave a figure of 70% of Nigerians living on a US Dollar a day. Four years further down the road, today, “unemployment rate in Nigeria increased to 24.20 percent in the first quarter of 2015 from 23.90 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011. Unemployment Rate in Nigeria averaged 15.97 percent from 2006 until 2015, reaching an all time high of 24.20 percent in the first quarter of 2015” (source: National Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria). Vice President Yemi Osinbajo was obviously scared by the revelation from the Central Bank of Nigeria that 70 per cent of 80 million Nigerian youths are without jobs, whereas for over the years,  the National Bureau of Statistics had been releasing reports that the Nigerian economy had been growing, and creating millions of jobs in the past years.
The key to success will remain first and foremost a clear enabling law on which the scheeme is founded and funded. Leaders at all levels must be politically committed to apply the prescriptions nationwide. Management is of critical importance. In the past, all efforts of Government, though succinctly spelt out, were in practice grossly mismanaged to a doomed failure. Implementations were politicised and characterised by tribalism, nepotism and discrimination based on sentiments. In nearly all cases corruption and fraud ruined the entire process.
It is obvious that there are economic challenges, but bad as the situation is, Nigeria still presents a promising economic scenario if Government maintains integrity, commitment to the lofty tenets of good governance and accountability, and dogged pursuit of diversification of the economy to support agriculture. with the appropriated policies, farming can be restored in the vast north to absorb a clear  40% of the presently idle poor and unemployed folk. Corruption is the one devil that will bring all efforts to naught. Corruption must be arrested and bound for Nigeria to succeed.