…Seeks help from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

By Joseph Erunke, ABUJA

Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr Betta Edu, has said a total of 16 million Nigerians are currently affected by humanitarian crisis.

This,he noted,was in addition to 46,000 refugees from the southern part of Cameroon to Nigeria. The refugees,she said,are mostly in Cross River,Taraba and Benue states along the border.

Speaking during a courtesy call on her by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Thursday in Abuja,the minister, while emphasizing that President Bola Tinubu was committed to Sustainable Development Goals,SDG by raising the affected people out of poverty by 2030, solicited the help of the Foundation in achieving the goals.

According to the minister, the ministry needed

technical help to see that it can draw a baseline, set the agenda and come up with programmes and projects that can be implemented to really lift people out of poverty while addressing the humanitarian needs.

She said the ministry also needed lots of financial help in terms of supporting programmes, supporting processes, and helping with implementation.

Dr Eddu said:”We have a huge task on our hands, as we speak now over 16 million Nigerians are affected by humanitarian crises, either man-made or the natural disasters. Of course, security issues, pockets of unrest in different areas have not made this any better.

“Other natural disasters like the flooding, which we are presently going through, and the opening of a Dam in another country, which will have its own effect on Nigeria, is another call for attention to ensure that people are catered for.

” And then, we have these unrests in all the neighboring countries – in Cameroon, in the southern part of Cameroon that have over 46,000 refugees coming into Nigeria. So there are over 36,000 in Cross River. We have a whole lot into Taraba and Benue, along that border.

“We are dealing with order crises in Niger, having people coming to Sokoto, Kano, Katsina and all of that. This is an addition to Nigerians that are refugees in this country and the migrants that were trying to go through the Niger and Libya and got stocked around the border. So it’s a whole lot as it concerns the humanitarian crises and what we need to deal with as a Ministry.”

Speaking further,she said:”But now the bigger one is here, which is poverty alleviation. We have from the last statistics done by the Bureau of Statistics, that about 133 million Nigerians are poor, that is multi-dimensional poverty, and then about 70 million of these people are extremely poor. So, they are basically living below $1.95 cent per day.

Edu explained that she found it necessary to engage with the foundation to set stage because of the new mandate of the ministry.

She said:”Of course, you know that before this time, the ministry used to be the Ministry for Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management, and Social Development.

“However, the President is refocusing the ministry to really address some key pillars or agendas of his administration. He has an eight- point agenda and topmost of it is the eradication of poverty.

“That is why the ministry was changed from Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development to Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation.

“This is to meet the SDG Goal 1, Goal 2 and several other cross-cutting SDG goals. Of course, it goes without saying that the SDGs is also one of the parastatals under the ministry, and you have about seven others that are concerned with different aspects of interventions from the refugee and migrant commission to NAPTIP involved in the prohibition of trafficking, of course to SDGs and then Senior Citizens and Agency for the Disabled.

“The President is committed to SDG which is raising these people out of poverty by 2030 and we need your help. That is a lot of work and I just thought it was important to get you to the table at the foundational stage. First, we would need a lot of technical help. Technical help to see that we can draw a baseline, set the agenda and come up with programmes and projects that can be implemented to really lift people out of poverty while addressing the humanitarian needs.

“So, these are areas in which we are going to work and I believe very strongly, that Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has a lot to do with management of humanitarian crises and of course, poverty alleviation.”