Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufa’i, has stated that Nigeria has the highest number of poor people among the countries of the world.
The governor made this statement while launching the State’s Social Protection Policy, on Tuesday.
According to him, Nigeria is going through trying times. We have the largest number of poor people than any country in the world. Yet, whenever a programme is designed to help the poor and vulnerable, we resort to a slot mentality in which important people are allocated slots instead of targeting those poor and vulnerable that deserve it. This is unfortunate.
We must move away from the slot mentality and use our social register to offer targeted support to those that truly need it.
“I appeal to all my colleagues, the political elites to please drop this slot mentality and use the social register, so that programmes targeting the vulnerable actually go to the poor and vulnerable. When we think of the poor and vulnerable, we must all remember that, the welfare of each one of us is bound up in the welfare of all of us, he stated.
