The National Economic Council (NEC) has made a decision to discard the social register utilized by the Muhammadu Buhari administration for implementing its conditional cash transfer program. Following their meeting at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, the council disclosed that the register was plagued with integrity issues and lacked clear criteria for compilation.

Anambra State Governor, Charles Soludo, addressing the media alongside Bauchi and Ogun State counterparts, Bala Mohammed and Dapo Abiodun, stated that the previous administration’s expectation of digitally transferring money to the poorest citizens, who mostly lack bank access, turned out to be unfeasible. The supposed beneficiaries of the cash transfers could not be reliably identified in villages.

As a solution, NEC resolved that individual states would develop their own registers, using both formal and informal methods, to ensure easier access to beneficiaries at the sub-national level. This move aims to address the problem of the current lack of a credible register.

During the meeting, NEC also deliberated on strategies to mitigate the impact of petroleum subsidy removal. It was clarified that only around N900 billion would be shared among the three tiers of government at the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) this month, contrary to the N2 trillion circulating on social media.

The meeting, chaired by Vice President Kashim Shettima, included the 36 governors of the federation, the Minister of Finance, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, and other participants.

Governors from various states, including Osun, Nasarawa, Enugu, Gombe, Zamfara, Katsina, Kwara, and Abia, participated in the meeting.