Murtala Maikano
Despite the claims made by the federal government that so far thousands of vulnerable people have benefited from its palliative programme known as conditional cash transfer CCT in Nigeria, an investigation by Universal Reporters confirmed that most of the beneficiaries are not the real targets of the programme as it only took place at LGAs Secretariats where a few people selected by some politicians can only access the cash.
In a similar effort by this media, when it contacted the residents of some villages in some LGAs of Kaduna State where the cash transfer is said to be conducted recently, a resident Alh. Abdullahi Ahmadu of Pangwani Gadas in Kubau LGA of Kaduna told this medium that, he had never noticed anything like Social Register exercise that took place in his village, he, therefore, expressed surprise on how Nigerian government accessed data of the beneficiaries in his LGA.
Similarly, Bala Sale and Ma’aruf Alhassan residents of Pala and Sayasaya villages in Ikara LGA of Kaduna state in their responses to Universal Reporters, said they have respectively said that “Social Register was never conducted in their villages, even in the Local Government Secretariat we never heard anything like Social Register,” said the duo.
This medium in deepening its investigation in some villages in Kaduna state to confirm whether exactly the Social Register of CCT beneficiaries was conducted for the recently disbursed data in Kaduna state in some villages which include Dutsen wai in Soba LGA, Panturawa, and Sabon Birni in Igabi LGA, Dandaura in Kauru LGA, Pambegua in Kabau in LGA, Dan alhaji in Lere LGA, Gazara in Makarfi LGA, Landuga in Kachia LGA, Jankasa in Sanga LGA, Kurmin Sata in Chikun LGA and Gangara in Giwa LGA all in Kaduna state, findings revealed that none of the villages mentioned above witnessed any Social Register assignment in Kaduna state.
This is coming at a when the Federal Ministry Of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management Social Development claimed to have disbursed N20, 000 to over 16,744 beneficiaries across Kaduna state.
Since federal government announced the activation of Conditional Cash Transfer CCT as one of its measures taken to mitigate the plight of vulnerable people during the period of lockdown in some states of the federation; the directives of president Muhammad Buhari had generated different reactions from individuals across the country over how the federal government generated the data of those beneficiaries in the country.
In a related development, a serving APC senator from the Northeast, Senator Ali Ndume alleged that the ongoing Conditional cash transfer is fraudulent, according to him most of those benefiting from the palliatives do not deserve them, and states which deserve them most get little or nothing. Ndume also said the data generated for social investment programme (SIP) Register, based on which the palliatives are being distributed does not reflect the reality of the poverty level in the country. It could be remembered that recently, the Northern Governors Forum alleged that the federal government was neglecting the north in the distribution of FG’s palliative packages.
