The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction, Prof. Nentawe Yilwatda, has revealed that six million Nigerians have benefited from the Federal Government’s Conditional Cash Transfer programme within the past six months.

Yilwatda disclosed this yesterday while addressing beneficiaries of the ongoing Skills-to-Wealth (S2W) training programme in Jos. The minister noted that only two million Nigerians had benefited from the CCT programme over the previous nine years but explained that the ministry has since adopted a new, more efficient approach.

“Previously, only two million people benefited from the conditional cash transfer scheme, which means that over nine years, just 200,000 people were supported yearly.

“We are currently digitising all households on the social register, providing them with digital identities, creating e-wallet accounts, and conducting physical verification.”

“We have removed numerous erroneous entries from the social register—those we could neither verify nor identify. “In just six months, we have reached six million people, averaging one million beneficiaries per month,” he stated.

The minister further disclosed that 15 million Nigerians are expected to be enrolled in the programme by October.

“He has directed that these funds be disbursed to beneficiaries within nine months,” Yilwatda explained. He also highlighted that the ministry engaged the World Bank to independently verify the programme’s beneficiaries.