The Presidency has confirmed that those who
benefited from the monthly N5,000 stipend
from the Federal Government to vulnerable
Nigerians, were selected before President
Muhammadu Buhari came into power.
This was contained in a statement by the
Senior Special Assistant on Media & Publicity to
the Vice-President, Laolu Akande, on Sunday.

nine States including: Bauchi, Borno, Cross
Rivers, Ekiti, Kwara, Kogi, Niger, Osun and Oyo.
Akande said the Community-Based Targeting
(CBT) model of the World Bank, was used two
years ago to identify most of them.
He said: “there is no way anyone can describe
the selection of the beneficiaries of the CCT as
partisan as the beneficiaries from eight of the
nine pilot States were picked even before this
administration came into office.”

“First, the officials at Federal level, working with
the State officials, identify the poorest Local
Government Areas, using an existing poverty
map for the State, then the LG officials identify
the poorest communities in the LGAs and we
send our teams there.
The first thing our team does after selection of
the LGAs is to select members of the NOA, the
LGA and community officials to form the CBT
team. Then we train the selected officials on
how to conduct Focus Group discussions at
community level. These focus groups comprise
of women, men, youth, as the community
determines.
“After training them, the CBT teams now go to
each of their communities to sensitize the
leaders, including traditional rulers, on the CBT
process and the necessity for objectivity and
openness in the process. At that meeting, they
firm up a date to convene a community
meeting at a designated location within the
community.

“On the set date, discussions are held in the
local languages, using terminologies that
resonate in that community. The CBT team will
explain to the community the purpose of the
gathering, i.e. to determine the parameters of
poverty upon which persons can be described
as poor and vulnerable within the context of that
community.
“The CBT teams will then engage each group
(men, women and youth) in the conversation
around the criteria and parameters for
determining the poorest people. The groups
would then be encouraged to identify those
households that fall within the criteria that the
community itself determines, and told that the
information is required for government’s
planning purposes.”