1.6m Households, 8m Nigerians Benefitting From N300bn Cash Transfer – Buhari

President Muhammadu Buhari has said 1.6 million households and eight million Nigerians are benefitting from the Conditional Cash Transfers of his administration.

Buhari said the ongoing efforts to reduce poverty in Nigeria have continued to grow, with 1.6 million poor and vulnerable households, comprising more than 8 million individuals currently benefiting from the Conditional Cash Transfer program.

The President claimed N300 billion has been disbursed to farmers across the country.

He disclosed this at the opening ceremony of the 14th Annual Banking and Finance Conference of Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria and was contained in a statement by his spokesman, Femi Adesina.

The President said the National Social Register of poor and vulnerable Nigerians had 32.6 million persons from 7 million poor and vulnerable households identified, imploring bankers to play a stronger role in improving livelihoods.

He said: “From this number, 1.6 million poor and vulnerable households, comprising more than 8 million individuals are currently benefiting from the Conditional Cash Transfer program, which pays a bi-monthly stipend of N10, 000 per household.’’

Buhari said the National Social Investment Programme was the biggest in Sub-Saharan Africa and one of the largest in the world.

“Some of the various initiatives embarked upon to boost agric trade in Nigeria include the Anchor Borrowers Programme through which the Central Bank of Nigeria had made more than 300 billion Naira available to over 3.1 million smallholder farmers of 21 different commodities including Rice, Wheat, Maize, Cotton, Cassava, Poultry, Soybeans, Groundnut, Fish, cultivating over 3.8 million hectares of farmland.

“It is on record that 80% of rice consumed in Nigeria is now produced locally.’’

To further strengthen recovery and enable more Nigerians, Buhari said, last year, he approved the establishment of InfraCo Plc, a world-class infrastructure development vehicle, wholly focused on Nigeria, with combined debt and equity take-off capital of N15 trillion, managed by an independent infrastructure Fund Manager.