The Federal Government has empowered 10, 173 vulnerable households in 12 local government areas in Niger with N60 million, an official had said.
Mrs Afiniki Dauda, the Special Adviser to Gov. Abubakar Sanni Bello of Niger on Empowerment and Social Protection, disclosed this during an interview with newsmen in Minna, capital of Niger, on Monday.
Dauda said that each of the 10,173 vulnerable households spread across 12 out of the 25 local government areas of the state received N5,000 each.
She said that Niger was among the eight states out of the 36 states in the country that was able get the database of the vulnerable households and they were paid the monthly stipend.
Dauda said that without such database, it would not have been feasible to just work on assumptions.
“We have so far captured the database for the vulnerable households in 12 local government areas and by 2017 we shall be covering the entire state.
“Chanchaga, Shiroro, Paikoro, Munya, Lapai, Agaie, Edati, Bida, Machegu, Kotangora, Wushishi and Magama Local government Areas ( LGAs) have been captured.
Similarly, she explained that they were able to achieve the feat with the N32million World Bank’s intervention that was used for logistics.
“The World Bank’s N32million intervention helped this office immensely in capturing 75,150 households out of which 10,173 are currently receiving their monthly N5,000 stipend” she said.
She said that by 201, the 64,977 that had not been benefiting would start to receive their stipends and, possibly, the arrears.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the scheme is geared toward assisting the most vulnerable households within the country. (NAN)