The new social assistance programme will also enrich social contract between the state and the citizenry and create a culture of accountability and trust between governments and citizens
Nigeria must put the welfare of its citizens at the core of its development policy—a people-centered development…It is time that we followed the examples of Brazil and India by introducing a system of direct social security payments to the poor by creating a phased social Insurance Scheme to assist certain groups in the population with social welfare payments through a phased programme, starting with young people under 30 and unemployed and senior citizens over 70.—APC 2015 Manifesto
With the announcement of the legislature’s approval of the 2016 budget which, despite rumours to the contrary, includes the 500 billion provision for social assistance to vulnerable citizens, millions of citizens are likely to be excited about welcoming the beginning of a comprehensive welfare state under a government that campaigned on the manifesto of change. It is also salutary that President Buhari has decided to stick to his campaign promise, despite the parlous state of the economy and the purse of the nation. The commencement of this kind of change in government-citizen relations occurs at an appropriate time for citizens and pressure groups to add their voices to the development of a multi-phase social protection programme.
Social security is a major policy and if given a good chance to develop, it will eliminate the pains arising from destitution for citizens in our society. The new social assistance programme will also enrich social contract between the state and the citizenry and create a culture of accountability and trust between governments and citizens. While the citizens must be ready to adjust to changes that are dictated by teething problems in the implementation of this major milestone, apart from introduction of free education in the 1950s, the government ought to study existing practices in the country and other parts of the world to see what may work best for the Nigerian context, without confusing the Buhari/APC philosophy of inevitability of a citizen-centred polity with problems of process/delivery of free meals in school in a country noticeably hobbled by transportation challenges.
The experience of Osun and Kaduna states come to mind as models to improve upon by those charged with implementation of a national free school meals policy. As governors Aregbesola and El Rufai have said, the free school meals scheme is a win-win policy. It encourages children to come to school; encourages farmers and others in the food chain to stay in business; and provides jobs for caterers, mostly women at a time that gender parity in the country is starkly behind that of many countries in the West African region.
This is a policy that requires involvement of professional home economists and nutritionists at all times. For example, the experience of Kaduna State regarding school children disappearing immediately after their meals, thus subverting the goal of the programme as a conditional social assistance to improve and increase literacy must be avoided. Schools must provide drinking water with meals, rather than expecting parents to send water to school with their children. Apart from relying on local food items, children must be made to see the programme as an opportunity to make them appreciate principles and practice of good nutrition and healthy eating. This programme offers a good opportunity for children to drink more local juice and milk and eat more local vegetables than starch and sugared soft drinks for healthy physical growth and mental development.
By choosing to start social assistance for the young and unemployed at a time that the nation’s economy is not buoyant, President Buhari has made a courageous effort to end the culture of excuses that made leaders in the past dismiss pressure from citizens for social assistance initiative on the ground that the country lacked resources, even in the years of oil boom. Starting this programme at a time that the country is being forced to move from parasitism to productivity is a very courageous thing to do, to reduce excruciating poverty in the land. It is also remarkable that the presidency has chosen to make the policy of cash payment to the unemployed conditional: tying cash transfers to participation in agricultural skills acquisition for young beneficiaries. This policy option, which many advanced countries are still struggling to adopt, will send the right signal to citizens that the country has no plan to nurture citizens who lack achievement orientation or sense of personal responsibility for their lives.
For the programme of cash payment to the most vulnerable citizens, it is important that adequate preparation is made to ensure that potential beneficiaries are properly screened. There is no better time than now for the government to establish a fool-proof national identification system. Eligibility criteria ought to include provision of verifiable residential address for each applicant, family income profile, and registration with agricultural skills centres in their state of residence. Both federal and state governments must be committed to providing up-to-date population count and full integration of data systems, to avoid double or triple dipping.
It is reassuring that President Buhari decided that the central government will collaborate with states in the provision of free school meals and conditional social security payment to citizens. The experience of matching funds under the Universal Basic Education Scheme should tell us what to avoid in the new scheme. Since the federal government receives a larger share than other levels of governments, it should carry up to 75% of the budget for both programmes. But no state should be allowed to avoid requesting for federal funds on the ground that it is unable to provide its counterpart funding, as it happened several times under Jonathan. Local governments should be involved in the implementation of this policy, especially in the area of means testing of candidates. Leaving decision of who is eligible for cash payment solely to bureaucrats in Abuja is fraught with more danger than involving subnational units to screen individuals at the grassroots level. In addition, the federal government must deploy auditors regularly to see that the money provided to states for free school meals is being spent according to the wishes of the government. Our country already has a bad reputation for giving pension payments to ghosts.
Almost at the risk of sounding hyperbolic about a programme in its infancy, beginning a nation-wide free school meals and monthly social assistance payment to very poor unemployed citizens represents an effort by the APC federal government to move the country from a plutocracy fuelled by elite kleptocracy to a pro-equality and anti-poverty democratic state. This policy is not one that should be left as executive action; it needs to become a constitutional matter, if it is to be a part of the country’s political culture beyond the present administration.
Furthermore, Buhari’s social assistance scheme is similar in many ways to the National Health Service in the United Kingdom and the Social Security Administration in the United States of America. Nigeria’s experiment should not be left in the hands of the traditional civil service. This service ought to be housed in an agency that is saddled with no function other than promoting, protecting, and delivering a service that sets out to initiate a citizen-centred government in a political system that has been known for relishing giving excuses to discourage citizens to get any benefit from the government. An agency devoted to managing social assistance programmes in a country of about 200 million people should be driven by data powered by cutting-edge Information Technology infrastructure, and driven by IT-savvy public servants, rather than in the hands of technophobic or technology-averse bureaucrats.
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