By Yusuf Danjuma Yunusa
The Federal Government has revealed that about 15 million vulnerable households have been enrolled in its Benefit Register for conditional cash transfers being implemented in collaboration with the World Bank, as part of measures to mitigate the impact of prevailing economic hardship.
The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction, Dr Bernard Doro, made the disclosure on Friday during an interview on Arise Television, clarifying that not all households listed in the National Social Register qualify for direct financial support.
According to him, while the National Social Register currently contains about 17.9 million vulnerable households — representing roughly 70 million individuals nationwide — only a subset has been selected for the conditional cash assistance programme.
“We are currently offering conditional cash assistance in conjunction with the World Bank, but this intervention is essentially a shock-response mechanism. Not everyone within the 17.9 million households in the register is in the Benefit Register. The Benefit Register comprises about 15 million vulnerable households,” he said.
Doro explained that the cash transfer initiative is designed as a temporary relief measure targeted at households most affected by economic shocks, rather than a blanket programme for all those captured in the broader register.
He noted that beneficiaries for specific interventions are selected based on clearly defined programme objectives and eligibility criteria, separate from the general database of vulnerable households.
The minister had earlier stated that approximately 70 million Nigerians have been identified as vulnerable through the National Social Register, a database developed to facilitate targeted poverty reduction strategies.
He explained that the register was initially designed to capture the “poorest of the poor” through community-driven identification processes and socio-economic assessments.
“At the moment, we have about 17.9 million vulnerable households captured in the register, translating to around 70 million individuals. We are continuing to expand the register to accommodate more eligible persons,” Doro said.
He stressed that local communities play a central role in identifying beneficiaries, adding that the process involves structured questionnaires, verification visits and home assessments to validate claims.
“Communities guide us based on established criteria to identify those who are truly poor among them. We also conduct validation visits, assess living conditions, review personal data and apply objective measures to determine who falls within the poorest category,” he explained.
The government maintains that the initiative is part of a broader social protection framework aimed at cushioning vulnerable Nigerians from economic shocks while strengthening data-driven poverty interventions nationwide.
