By Chimezie Godfrey
The Minister, Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajia Sadia Umar Farouq, has said that the Federal Government will not relent in providing humanitarian aids to the indigenes of Nasarawa State.
The Minister stated this on Thursday in Abuja during her interaction with the Nasarawa state Governor, Abdullahi A. Sule who paid her a courtesy visit in her office.
”I will like to acknowledge the programmes the Ministry held in Nasarawa State. We have the Conditional Cash Transfer, (CCT), targeted at poor households which has 48, 637 beneficiaries, N-POWER targeted at the unemployed graduates which has 12, 000 beneficiaries, Government Economic Enterprise Programme, (GEEP),which are in three components, trader moni, farmer’s moni and Nasarawa State has 36, 000 beneficiaries.
”We have the focus on School Feeding Programme and this is a laudable programme which ensures that children go to school, empower local women and local producers. The entire benefits of these programmes are enormous and Nasarawa State has 170, 630 children who have benefited from the programme,” She said.
Farouq pointed out that Nassarawa State has a large number of Internally Displaced persons, (IDPs) as a result of communal clashes adding that there is need to empower and resettle the affected persons.
She stressed the need to partner with the State Government to control flooding in the state noting that the Federal Government will engage the state SEMAs to ensure that these disasters are put under control.
In his speech, the Governor of Nassarawa State Engr. Abdullahi. A.Sule, said that the state hosts 80,000 children engaged in street begging, which has the majority from neighbouring states, and that the state would seek the intervention of the Ministry to cater for these children in areas such as feeding, clothing and education.
He further said that the Minister can use Nasarawa State as a template for addressing the humanitarian needs of these category of children in other part of the country.
