More than one month after the federal government claimed that it will channel the returned Abacha loot to the betterment of life and welfare of very poor Nigerians, the Statistician General of the Federation, Dr Yemi Kale, has said the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) will conduct a national survey to determine the levels of poverty and living standards in Nigeria.
The development therefore puts under scrutiny the sources of data being currently used by the federal government to determine poor Nigerians in the disbursements of the returned loots.
It would be recalled that the federal government had been using the fund as interest free loans to Nigerians considered very poor so as to lift them out of poverty but it may become clear that government is doing so without a credible record after the NBS survey.
Analysts say if there had been a credible register identifying the very poor, NBS would have no reason to suddenly remember that it has to conduct a survey it should have done about four to five years ago.
Business Hilights recalls that the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo was at Imo State weekend to share the N10,000 TraderMoni scheme which is interest and collateral free loan to poor Nigerians who he said will refund same in six months.
The fund used in the scheme according to the government was from the returned Abacha loots.
Kale had during a stakeholders’ sensitisation workshop on the conduct of the 2018 Nigeria Living Standards Survey (NLSS) in Keffi, said the survey which started this week is aimed at measuring levels of poverty and welfare in the country.
He said the data generated from the survey is usually the most comprehensive survey that showed the state of well-being in the country.
According to him, the last survey was conducted in 2009/2010 and a new one was due since 2014/2015.
NBS boss averred that “The subject of poverty is critical to a developing country like Nigeria. It is for this reason that we are working with NASSCO and the World Bank to conduct this exercise.”
The National Coordinator of National Social Safety-Nets Coordinating Office (NASSCO), Iorwa Apera, noted that the outcome of the survey will aid the Federal Government in building a social safety register to administer social safety programmes.
Apera added that “The focus is on the poor and the poorest in the society that can be identified using surveys like this.’’
