Okwe Obi, Abuja
The Federal Government has promised to lift over 80,000 children begging in Nasarawa State, of the street.
Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq, stated this recently when the State Governor, Abdullahi Sule, visited her recently in Abuja.
Farouq further noted that Nassarawa State has a large number of Internally Displaced persons, (IDPs) as a result of communal clashes, adding that there was need to empower and resettle the affected persons.
She also called on state governments to partner with Federal Government to control flooding, noting that government will engage the state SEMAs to ensure that disasters are put under control.
She added that “we have the Conditional Cash Transfer, (CCT), targeted at poor households which has 48, 637 beneficiaries, N-POWER targeted at the unemployed graduates which has 12, 000 beneficiaries, Government Economic Enterprise Programme, (GEEP), which are in three components, trader moni, farmer’s moni and Nasarawa State has 36, 000 beneficiaries.
”We have the focus on School Feeding Programme and this is a laudable programme which ensures that children go to school, empower local women and local producers. The entire benefits of these programmes are enormous and Nasarawa State has 170, 630 children who have benefited from the programme.”
Earlier Governor Sule said that by virtue of the 80,000 children begging in the State, it is the highest in the country, and as such would need the intervention from the Ministry particularly in the areas of feeding, clothing and education.
He urged the Minister to use Nasarawa State as a template in addressing humanitarian needs of this category of children in other parts of the country.