The Federal Government has said that 25 percent of Nigerians will benefit from the palliatives in place to cushion the effects of the Coronavirus lockdown. However, it added that  people with over N5, 000 in their bank account will not be beneficiaries of the palliatives

The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management,  Sadiya Farouq made the disclosures while briefing State House correspondents after meeting behind closed doors with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

She said:“You are aware that the President in his broadcast of Monday 13th April, directed that we expand the beneficiaries of the conditional cash transfer by one million and in this regard, we are going to focus more now on the urban poor.

“These are people who depend on the informal sector to earn their livelihood; they are daily wage earners and these are the people that we are really going to focus more on as well as people living with disabilities.”

She also said that the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management has three options to be adopted in selecting the beneficiaries of the scheme.

“Well, we have three options; one, we are going to use the national social register that we already have, two, we are also going to focus on the urban poor as I mentioned, by using their verified BVN accounts to get them, that is, people that have an account balance of N5, 000 and below.

“We are also using the mobile networks, to know people that top up the credit units for their phones with maybe N100 or less. Those are also people that we consider to be poor and vulnerable. So, these are the three options that we are exploring and I am sure that by the time we get this data we will be able to give this intervention.

“However, only 25 per cent of the population would benefit for now, although more people may benefit later.

“Let me also say that we have a standard.  25 per cent of the total population is what we will take out. It cannot go round everywhere but we are starting from somewhere. 25 per cent of let’s say the population of Lagos State for example is what is going to benefit from this intervention that we are doing. Going forward, we might expand it but this is what is obtainable for now.”