The Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning (MFBNP) and International Labour Organisation(ILO) have commenced the training of legal drafters on relevant international and regional instruments on Social Protection.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the three-day retreat is a collaboration between the Federal Government and UN.
The training kicked off on Monday in Lagos State and is geared toward familiarising drafters with the revised National Social Protection Policy(NSPP) and the Legal Mapping report.
The training is one of the phases set up to align government’s legislative framework with the policy reform agenda toward universal protection for all.
NAN also reports that in the course of the retreat, the table of content for the bill to be presented at a wider consultation will be developed.
In his opening remarks, Mr Omotayo Adeyemi, Director, Department of Social Development, MFBNP, said that the workshop was a preparatory capacity building session for the drafting of the National Social Protection Bill.
Adeyemi represented Mrs Olusola Idowu, Permanent Secretary, Budget and Planning
According to him, it will expose participants to the basic and fundamentals of bill drafting, a prerequisite to achieving the objective of producing a draft bill.
“The reviewed draft is in its last stage which is institutionalisation through legislation.
“With the institutionalisation of the policy, there will be sustainability and continuity in the implementation of Social Protection programmes for the benefit of the poor and vulnerable in Nigeria.
“It will also enable the government to sustain every initiative put in place in support of both contributory and non-contributory Social Protection programme in Nigeria.”
He added that the reduction of poverty and vulnerabilities was one of the priorities of the government in her drive toward sustainable development.
This, he said, increased the necessity to leverage the collaborative efforts of relevant MDAs , development partners and private sector for the success of the Social Protection programme in Nigeria.
“The revised document underlines that an all inclusive and integrated Social Protection policy in Nigeria will address poverty and economic vulnerability .”
According to an unpublished ILO Social Security Inquiry performed in collaboration with the government of Nigeria in 2019, social protection mechanisms legally cover 13 per cent of people living in the country.
Prof. Oyelowo Oyewo (SAN), Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Oyo State and Chair , NSPP Technical Team, said matters involving poverty and economic vulnerability fell within residual items in the constitution.
“There is experiential evidence to show that when such items are not well grounded, they tend to suffer challenges in the law court.
“We run a Federal constitution and can not have a centralised approach to our problems.”
According to him, poverty reduction is an existential issue that threatens the corporate existence of Nigeria.
“This programme must be taken from a wholistic, all embracing and encompassing stakeholders approach that allows participation processes for poverty reduction by the poor.
“The Achilles heels in most of our policies is that we do not consider the people that will be the end users,” he said.
Oyewo said that in drafting the Social Protection law, stakeholders must recognise that states were not only autonomous but also more limited in resource availability.
“We must not forget to incorporate schemes that will accommodate the private sector.
“Our law must not have a common law approach and since the poverty in the system is African in nature, solutions must be rooted in the poverty that exists here.
“This is a Nigerian problem that must wear a Nigerian face,” he said.
NAN reports that other participants in the retreat included representatives from the legal and harmonisation sub-committee, technical working group, employers and the UN joint development partners .(NAN)
