Waziri Adio counters NEC, says national social register credible

Waziri Adio, the ace journalist and policy strategist, has described the national social register as comprehensive and robust. 

Adio made the assertion on Tuesday while speaking during Arise TV’s Global Business report.

On July 20, the National Economic Council (NEC), presided over by Vice-President Kashim Shettima, resolved to dump the national social register compiled under Muhammadu Buhari, the immediate past president, for lacking credibility.

Speaking to journalists after the council’s meeting, Chukwuma Soludo, governor of Anambra, said NEC agreed that states should develop their own registers using formal and informal means.

“We need to face the problem of the fact that we don’t have a credible register,” he had said.

Reacting to the governor’s remark, Adio said he does not believe Soludo’s position accurately reflects the reality of the register.

“If you listen to him, the impression you are going to get is that the register does not have credibility, is shabby, and is a sham,” he said. 

“That is far from the truth. If you look at the process of putting the register together, the structure for gathering information in the register as well as the methodology used for the register, you will find out that this is a register that is comprehensive, robust and the process is participatory and decentralised.”

Speaking on the structure, the policy strategist described the register as an agglomeration of different registers compiled at the state level.

“So, each state already has its own social register and you put all of that together into the national register. So, you put all of that together and all of that process. The process started with the federal government having MoUs with all the states,” Adio said.

“All the states of the federation signed an MoU with the federal government to say they are going to compile registers in their own states. Not just that. 

“They set up state operations and coordinating units embedded in their own ministries of planning or planning commissions in the states. And they further set up community tracking teams in the LGAs.”

Adio also said the process was implemented at the state level by state officials and local government officials.

“It started with a pre-sensitisation meeting and then, a sensitisation and mobilisation meeting. That is the second step. The third step is the community engagement where they engage with the communities,” he said.

“The last one is the capture of the data. When you look at the methodology, it started with doing a map on the incidence of poverty in the various states. And that leaned heavily on the Nigerian living standard survey conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). This is not something that just came from the air; it was based on a survey by the NBS.”

The journalist added that the register is one of the most “comprehensive databases that you can find in this country”.