By Hassana Yakubu

The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Farouq has distributed tablets and engagement letters to 186 independent monitors of the National Social Investment Programme, (NSIP) to ensure that vulnerable population is well-captured.

The Minister stated this while flagging off the distribution of engagement letters and tablets to the trained independent monitors of the NSIP in Kaduna on Monday.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Federal Government of Nigeria established the National Social Investments Programmes (NSIP) in 2016 to tackle poverty and hunger across the country.

The suite of programmes under the NSIP focuses on ensuring a more equitable distribution of resources to vulnerable populations, including women, children and youth.

The minister, who was represented by the Assistant Director in charge of the ICT, Mr Aminu Tukur urged them to exhibit a high level of dedication and patriotism in the discharge of their assignment.

“We urged you to carry out the assignment with outmost sense of patriotism, diligence and sincerity; we at the ministry will not accept anything short of standard,” she said.

The minister said that discharging their jobs diligently would enable them to evaluate the success of the programmes in the state.

Mrs Saude Atoyebi, State Focal Person, NSIP, Kaduna state, commended the federal government for their support.

Atoyebi charge the independent monitors to use the technology provided them judiciously so as to enable the state rectified any problem when it arose.

” Take the jobs seriously and also put in accurate information that will be of benefit to the poor which the programme is intended to reach out to.”

According to her, the state takes social protection programme very seriously and has put in place measures to strengthened the programme being run in the state.

Atoyebi added that the state government recently lunched social protection policy which provided a framework for the coordination of social protection intervention in the state.

”The state is also working towards the enactment of the Kaduna state Social Protection Law so as provide the legal framework for social protection activities.

According to her, all the combined of NSIP has supported more than 850,000 thousand beneficiaries in Kaduna state.

“Under the Conditional Cash Transfer Programme, a total of 96,236 beneficiaries from nine local government areas of the state have received fourteen successful payments from December 2017 to June 2020.

Atoyebi added that another additional 38,223 household had been approved for inclusion in the programme.

”Also livelihood training were conducted for the beneficiaries who have 625 groups with 590 registered corporative society.”

She said that a total of 19, 576 youths including 18,000 graduates and over 1000 non-graduates had so far benefited from the NPower.

She noted that 3,262 schools were benefiting from the national homegrown school feeding programme while 7,261 cooks were recruited and a total of 735, 000 school pupils were enjoying the school feeding in the state.

Atoyebi said that the state had been providing support to ensure smooth running of the programme.

She added that a localized menu were designed for the cooks in the school feeding programme and a statewide food verification exercise was recently conducted.

According to her, accountability mechanism was put in place by the state government where mothers can monitored the school feeding programme to compliment already existing structure.

Atoyebi said that the school-based management committee had also been established in the state.

Speaking at the occasion, one of the beneficiaries, Ahmed Ishaku promised to discharge his duty judiciously and to ensure that those who were meant to benefit from the programme were reached.(NAN)

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FG extends NIN-SIM linkage deadline to July 26

Jude Egbas

June 29, 2021 10:52 AM

Nigerians have been asked to take advantage of the extension and do the needful.

Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Pantami. [Twitter/@FMoCDENigeria]

Nigerians who haven't integrated their phone numbers with their National Identity Numbers (NIN), now have up till July 26, 2021 to do so.

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In a joint statement issued by the Director, Public Affairs of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Ikechukwu Adinde; and the Head, Corporate Communications, Nigeria Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Kayode Adegoke, the federal government says the decision to further extend the deadline was reached following pleas from stakeholders.

“The decision to extend the deadline was made after a request by stakeholders on the need to consolidate the enrolment and NIN-SIM verification process following the rapid increase in the number of enrolment systems across the country.

“As at June 28, 2021, a total of 5,410 enrolment systems are now available across the country and this would significantly ease the NIN enrolment process and subsequent linkage of NIN to SIM.

"It is worthy of note that there were only about 800 such enrolment systems as at December 2020.

“The federal government has approved the extension as part of its efforts to make it easier for its citizens and residents to obtain the NIN and it is important to take advantage of the extension," the statement reads.

The statement adds that there are now 57.3 million unique NIN enrolments, with average of 3 to 4 SIMs per NIN.

Previous deadlines handed to Nigerians to link their SIMs with their NINs or lose their phone numbers were December 30, 2020; January 19, 2021; February 9, 2021; April 6, 2021; and June 30, 2021.