Following the protests by ordinary Nigerians over the widespread hunger in the land, the Federal Government unveiled plans to restart direct cash transfers to the poorest and most vulnerable Nigerians. Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Wale Edun, revealed this during the ministry’s retreat held in Uyo, Akwa-Ibom State, last week, saying that the expansion of the cash transfer scheme aimed to reach a wider population who are struggling with the economic situation and to put more money directly in the hands of those who need it most, allowing them to prioritise their needs and alleviate poverty. Said the minister: “We know that there are about three million beneficiaries now, but given the way the rates have gone, there are probably another 12 million people; households that can benefit from that payment…We have experts in technology; the commitment is to make sure that we use technology to ensure that we have a seamless payment between the registered and the direct beneficiaries, without any manual processes in between. So, it’s taking time to automate that process immediately that direct payment will resume”.

This is, to say the least, curious, coming from the same government that told Nigerians that the social register used by the Muhammadu Buhari administration in making conditional cash transfers to the so-called poorest Nigerians lacked credibility. In June last year, the National Economic Council (NEC) unanimously resolved to shelve that national social register, asking states to generate their own registers for such cash transfers. Briefing State House correspondents at the end of the meeting, Governor Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra State said contrary to what the previous administration projected, it was not possible to digitally transfer money to the poorest of the poor, the majority of whom were unbankable. He said it was agreed that states should generate registers that were comprehensive and ensure they were only for vulnerable people. Professor Soludo, in company with Governors Bala Mohammed (Bauchi) and Dapo Abiodun (Ogun), noted that beneficiaries of the supposed transfered cash could not be identified in the villages, hence NEC resolved that the states should come up with their own registers, using formal and informal means to develop it, as all beneficiaries at the sub-national level could easily be accessed that way. So, what has changed now? Has a new register been created?

How is the government going to determine the beneficiaries without providing any details to Nigerians? Is there a new template and has it undergone integrity test? What major stakeholders were carried along in creating a new template, if indeed one has been created? The government seems to be merely struck by the growing complaints in the land over its strangulating policies and looking for any means to pacify the people. There is no evidence of rigorous, data-driven intervention. The government suspended its cash transfer and other social investment bazaars at some point after it was shown that there was no evidence of their impact, especially as there was no visible way of monitoring the implementation and those benefiting from them. The government even admitted that there were problems with the compilation of the social register used for the programmes. And now the government is returning to the same template of action without telling Nigerians how it has addressed the shortcomings identified earlier. In any case, we have always insisted that the idea of simply throwing money at Nigerians does not help in any significant way, apart from being an easy avenue for massive corruption.

The country lacks adequate data about anything, yet the government pretends that it can build something of value on such anomaly. The return to the template of cash transfer by the government portrays it as having no concrete understanding of the current situation of the country as it desperately searches for anything to do to present itself as working. It is safe to say that the country may soon wake up to see the government being overwhelmed with the anomalies associated with this return to the cash transfer template when and where irrefutable evidence emerges of voodoo lists of beneficiaries underlined by corruption. We expect the government to be more concerned with how to reduce the inflationary pressures in the economy and ensure that Nigerians can productively engage themselves to create a dignified existence rather than simply throwing money at them for no productive reason.

Nigerians deserve urgent attention by the government, but this should be about getting them a conducive environment for productive engagement and not a return to cash transfers and associated acts entwined in corruption.

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