The Honorable Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq, has urged Casework Officers in the Social Development Department to stay informed, acquire new knowledge and skills as well as maintain an improved standard of practice.
She disclosed this at the capacity building workshop on Counseling Strategy for Casework Officers in Abuja.
Speaking, the Minister, represented by Mr. Mansur Kuliya, Ag Director said, “Continuous improvement of skills of an organization’s work force, provides an opportunity for the workforce to enhance and increase their capacities to perform their jobs in effective and efficient ways”.
“Casework is focused on enhancing human wellbeing to meet the basic human needs of people with particular attention to needs and empowerment of people who are vulnerable, oppressed and living in poverty.”
The Minister said that the main objectives of the workshop are;
I. To train and enhance the skills of Case Workers on the basic steps of case work management.
II. To understand and apply social work principles and ethical conducts on counseling strategies in Nigeria.
III. To share experience and equip the officers with improved skills on social work practice.
The Minister said, “The Ministry handles series of case work such as marital disputes, financial and medical assistances as well as provision of economic empowerment materials for the poor and vulnerable in the country”.
“Social Service is very dynamic, fast growing and puts pressure on the need of continuous training i.e building and strengthening capacity of Social/caseworkers. Training is important to social workers to enable them stay informed, acquire new knowledge and skills as well as maintain an improved standard of practice”.
Mr. Emmanuel Udoh, Deputy Director in the Social Development department expressed gratitude to the management of the Ministry for giving approval for the workshop to be held. He said, “I also wish to thank the resource persons who would bring their wealth of Knowledge to bear on the training”.
Present at the training were the Facilitators Professor Ekundayo Ocholi, from the University of Abuja, Dr. Maijama Kwassu a retired Director and Mr. Valentine Ezulu Director in the department of Social Development.

Grace Osuji
Principal Information Officer
For: DD (Information)
January 24, 2022

The Honourable Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq, on behalf of the Federal Government, has condoled the family and the Kano State Government over the killing of the five-year old pupil Hanifa Abubakar, who was allegedly kidnapped and murdered by her teacher, Mr Abdulmalik Tanko, at a private school Noble Kids School, located in Kwanar Dakata in Nasarawa, Local Government Area of Kano State.
The Minister in a press statement issued by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Bashir Nura Alkali, says the Federal Government condemns in totality the inhuman act done to the five- year old pupil and similar incidents in other schools across the country, assured that all the perpetrators must face justice.
Farouq saddened by the circumstances of the girl’s death prayed for Allah to accept the soul of the departed and grant the parents the fortitude to bear the irreparable loss.
She said the Federal Government will ensure that justice is done in the matter.
The Minister commended the prompt action taken so far by the Kano State Government on the withdrawal of the licenses of the two schools named in the tragedy and the constitution of a ministerial committee to ensure justice is done in the matter.

Bashir Nura Alkali
Permanent Secretary

The attention of the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development is drawn to a statement credited to the Bauchi State Governor, His Excellency, Senator Bala Mohammed, who alleged that “over N1trilion federal government’s Social Investment Programme (SIP) has been siphoned by public and political office holders under president Muhammadu Buhari’s nose”.
The Governor, who further stated that “corruption has already crashed the Federal Government’s SIP programme to its knees, challenged the FG to adopt the system of empowerment his administration is doing in Bauchi state”.
The above statement was made at the launch of the Kaura Economic Empowerment Programme (KEEP), during which he was also quoted to have declared, amongst others, that “today, the social investment programme has collapsed and nobody is getting anything”.
The Ministry wishes to categorically affirm that the above unsubstantiated statements credited to the Bauchi State Governor are manifestly false, and have absolutely no bearing to the realities on ground.
The Federal Government’s National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) launched by His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari in 2016 and currently being supervised by the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development is very much alive functional, dynamic and increasingly expanding to reach and continue to make a significant positive difference in the lives of even more poor and vulnerable households and beneficiaries nationwide, including Bauchi State. To claim otherwise will not be in tune with the realities on the implementation of the NSIP in his state, in particular, as regularly being reported in both the traditional and new media outlets.
By way of emphasis, the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP), though a Federal Government funded intervention, is strictly being implemented by state government appointed officials and indigenes, who are working tirelessly alongside the NSIP team at the national level to deliver the inherent benefits of the various programmes to the poor and vulnerable persons in their respective states, in line with the good intentions of Mr. President to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty by the year 2030. The head of the State NSIP implementation team is a Focal Person directly appointed by His Excellency, the Governor.
The entire beneficiaries and participants across all programmes (clusters) are bona fide indigenes of the state, just as payments to participants and beneficiaries are also made directly into their individual accounts.
For instance:
a) On the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP), all payments made to cooks, who are all employed and appointed by the state government, are effected through their individual accounts. Similarly, the food materials aggregators are directly engaged and introduced to the Ministry by His Excellency, the Governor, and are also directly paid through their respective company accounts. In Bauchi State, there are 3,357 (three thousand, three hundred and fifty – seven) Primary schools with 444,099 (four hundred and forty – four thousand, and ninety- nine) pupils, 7,538 (seven thousand, five hundred and thirty – eight) cooks, and 12 (twelve) Food aggregators on the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme.

b) Payments for N-Power beneficiaries, all indigenes of the State, are also made directly into their respective accounts. These N-Power volunteers are attached to schools, healthcare centres and ADPs across the state. Under Batch A, there were 4,837 (four thousand, eight hundred and thirty – seven) graduate beneficiaries, Batch B had 8,041 (eight thousand, and forty – one) graduate beneficiaries, 1,667 (one thousand, six hundred and sixty – seven) N-Build non-graduate beneficiaries, and 339 (three hundred and thirty – nine) N-Knowledge beneficiaries. Currently, under the Batch C1, there are 14,535 (fourteen thousand, five hundred and thirty – five) graduate beneficiaries, 629 (six hundred and twenty – nine) N-Knowledge beneficiaries, 301 (three hundred and one) Mobile Money Agents and 175 (one hundred and seventy – five) Phone Repairs Technicians participating in Bauchi State.

c) Under the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP), all beneficiaries receive the proceeds of their interest-free and collateral-free soft loans directly into their respective accounts. In Bauchi State, the GEEP 2.0 has already registered a total of 37,907 (thirty – seven thousand, nine hundred and seven) from all the 20 (twenty) LGAs to participate under the MarketMoni, TraderMoni and FarmerMoni products.

d) On the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) cluster, the poor and vulnerable households are all identified and enrolled into the National Social Register (NSR) through an independent Community Based Targeting (CBT) strategy in each state. The NSR is generated from individual state social registers, which are domiciled at the State Ministry of Planning, including that of Bauchi State. From this NSR, the Conditional Cash Transfer beneficiaries are selected and enrolled into a National Beneficiary Register (NBR), which is used to make payments of N5,000 (five thousand Naira) monthly grants over a 2-year period. In Bauchi State, there are 75,110 (seventy – five thousand, one hundred and ten) poor and vulnerable households in the NSR, made up of 401,395 (four hundred and one thousand, three hundred and ninety – five) individuals, from which a total of 99,957 (ninety – nine thousand, nine hundred and fifty – seven) from all the 20 (twenty) LGAs are in the National Beneficiary Register (NBR) and are currently receiving monthly payments up to date.

e) Grant for Rural Women is a special project approved by Mr President aimed to empower rural poor and vulnerable women through an advance of a one off grant of N20,000 (twenty thousand Naira) to Rural Women with emphasis on engendering financial inclusion and, most specifically, developing and enhancing rural informal enterprises. In Bauchi State, a total of 8,671 (eight thousand, six hundred and seventy – one) women, all indigenes of Bauchi State benefitted.

f) Engagement of community-based Independent Monitors (IMs), who are all indigenes of the State, are deliberately deployed to ensure effective implementation of the NSIP as designed. In Bauchi State, a total of 268 (two hundred and sixty – eight) IMs from all the 20 LGAs have been engaged, deployed and are regularly being paid the monthly N30,000 (thirty thousand Naira) stipend directly into their personal accounts.

g) The Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) centers with requisite IT tools and equipment were established in selected public science and technical secondary schools to strategically engender and promote the study of science, engineering and technology, along with building the IT skills of students. In Bauchi State, 13 (thirteen) such adequately equipped STEM centres are currently functional, with 3 (three) fully trained STEM teachers in each of the schools.

h) The Alternate School Programme (ASP) that targets to reach 1,000,000 (one million) Out Of School Children (OOSC) nationwide in 2022, as approved by Mr. President, is currently being implemented. Bauchi State is fully captured, like all other States Nationwide.
The above verifiable statistics serve as ample and credible evidence that the NSIP is fully operational and functional across Nigeria, including Bauchi State.

It is pertinent to stress at this point that poverty knows no pollical affiliation. The Ministry, therefore, wishes to congratulate His Excellency, the Bauchi State Governor, on the recent launch of the Kaura Economic Empowerment Programme (KEEP) and also welcome him on board to join it in the onerous fight against poverty in Nigeria, and in Bauchi State in particular.

God bless Nigeria.

Engr. Umar B. Bindir, PhD
National Coordinator, NSIP

Issued this 21th day of January, 2022

A training workshop for 37 Master Trainers for the N-Skills Programme, an arm under Federal Government’s National Social Investment Programme N-Power, has commenced in Abuja.

Declaring the training session open, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development Sadiya Umar Farouq said that the N-Skills programme targets marginalized and disadvantaged population, including those with primary or no-formal education.

The Minister who was represented by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry Mr Bashir Nura Alkali stated that the 37 Master Trainers will later coordinate the training of 6,475 youths selected from the 36 States and FCT.

“The Ministry worked with experienced training service providers to carefully select those to be trained today as Master Trainers. We expect these Master Trainers to effectively play their role of coordinating the training of the target beneficiaries of the N-Skills programme in their respective States and FCT.

“The success of the programme relies to a large extent on your capacity and commitment to ensure effective delivery of the training, especially in the three important areas of Life Skills, Foundational Skills and Entrepreneurial Skills.

“I urge you to, therefore, participate actively to learn and enhance your capacity. I am confident that with the calibre of resource persons and facilitators assembled here, this goal will be achieved”.

Earlier, the National Coordinator, NSIP Dr Umar Bindir noted that N-Power targets delivery capacity and capability alongside skills. He added that this is one of the measures being taken to ensure that no one is left behind under the President Muhammadu Buhari administration of lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty by 2032.

“The training targets the unlearned so that every category of Nigerians will have something to fall back on”.

In his remarks, the Team Lead, N-Power Mr Nsikak Okon stated that 175 N-Skills beneficiaries were selected through random sampling from each of the 36 states and the FCT.

“We target market places and other informal places as well as the streets.
“The essence of training the Master Trainers is to ensure that they get it right from the foundation. They have to know the entrepreneurial skills as well as life skills so that when they go back to the grassroots, they will be able to impart what they have been taught”.

Upon completion of the training, the target beneficiaries will be provided with Start-up Kits.

NNEKA IKEM ANIBEZE
SA MEDIA
14th January 2022