As activities of the Buhari administration gradually come to a close, details of the achievements of its National Poverty Reduction with Growth Strategy (NPRGS) – an initiative aimed at reducing poverty across Nigeria, are emerging.
Checks on the activities of the Steering Committee of NPRGS, chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo indicated that by adopting a different approach based on a common-sense strategy, the committee’s interventions have impacted millions of Nigerians across different sectors in less than a year of operations.
Confirming the development, the spokesman to the vice president, Mr Laolu Akande in a media update stated noted that “almost two million vulnerable Nigerians have been impacted by various projects implemented by the NPRGS Committee for the year 2022 in agriculture, rural roads construction and skills and vocational training.”
Akande recalled that Prof. Osinbajo had noted in a meeting with committee members that “how the Buhari administration plans to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years will not be based on a business-as-usual approach, but a very simple, common-sense strategy that will deliver the results as the President promised.”
He explained that it was the approach adopted by the Committee led by the VP that resulted in the significant progress made by it within a very short period of time.
Findings indeed show that about 1.6 million smallholder farmers were impacted under the Agriculture for Jobs Plan alone, while 13,000 youths have been trained under a Technical and Vocational Education and Training programme in 6 States comprising Lagos, Ogun, Enugu, Gombe, Kaduna and Nasarawa, while arrangements are underway to provide similar training for 2000 beneficiaries in Edo State.
Equally, more than 8,000 Nigerians were employed in rural roads construction under the Rural Roads programme which built 40 rural roads in 120 communities, covering about 57.3 km across the country.
According to the NPRGS implementation monitoring update Akande released, ” some of the programmes that have achieved 100% completion for the 2022 cycle include: Agriculture for Food and Jobs Plan (AFJP),and Construction of Rural Roads, among others.