COVID-19: NASSCO releases list of poor households in Nigeria

The National Social Safety Nets Coordinating Office (NASSCO) on Friday released the list of the National Social Register of Poor & Vulnerable Households by states.

Onyxnews Nigeria understands that the list captures the summary of the complete number of documented poor individuals and households across states.

The Agency which responsibility is to buildil a database of poor and vulnerable households and coordinates Social Protection programs in Nigeria said the “Register is available to be mined for COVID19 response measures targeting the poor & vulnerable.”

Although, explaining why some states like Ogun and Ekiti State were missing on the list, NASSCO noted the states were yet to be capture and their respective governments are giving the procedure full support.

“The states yet to be captured like Ogun and Ebonyi are those still in the process of building their register. The govts of both states are giving the process full support,” NASSCO stated.

Explaining the duties of the National Social Register, NASSCO said, “a gateway for registered poor and vulnerable households to access social interventions or welfare packages by the government, philanthropy, NGOs and/or businesses.

“The Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development is using the list to reach the extreme poor with cash transfers.

“The cash transfer is currently paying 1 million poor and vulnerable households,” NASSCO said.

The Agency also said that the Federal Government will by June expand the number of registered households from 2.6 million to 4 million.

Similarly, Onyxnews Nigeria reported that the Lagos State Government has began house-to-house search for possible coronavirus cases within the State.

The Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, revealed this on Thursday, during a joint ministerial press briefing on COVID-19 intervention in Lagos State.

Prof. Abayomi said that the COVID-19 case identification campaign would run for two weeks in the first instance across the state.

He also said that the health workers carrying out the task would be known with the COVID-19 outbreak response tags and letter from the Local Government.