BY AUSTIN OYIBODE
A Channels Television anchor, Seun Okinbaloye, has thumbed up for Senator Ned Nwoko representing Delta North in the National Assembly for the impressive number of bills and motions he has sponsored in the past one year and four months he has been in the Senate
Okinbaloye, reputed for his critical stance on interviewees,
told Senator Nwoko that he had a long list of bills and motions he had sponsored within the short period he had been in the National Assembly
According to him: “Some of the bills and motions you have moved on the floor of the Senate would take a Federal Lawmaker a tenure or two to move, but you have done that in far less than two years”.
Okinbaloye made the remark during a live television session with Senator Nwoko after participating in the screening of newly appointed ministers at the national assembly.
In the session, the television anchor man drew the attention of the Senator to the bill for an Act to rename the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development to National Social Security Agency, which he had brought to the Senate for consideration.
Senator Nwoko revealed that the proposed renaming would make the functions of the Ministry to be more data driven, such that the data of all Nigerians irrespective of socio-economic and political status could be collected for proper planning and documentation.
He said: “We need to have data of everyone from the units to the wards, to the local governments and to the states. There should be data base for everybody in Nigeria.”
The Senator said what he was advocating had never been done before in Nigeria. He said the objective was to identify those in need from all the communities in the nation. He noted that the Ministry of humanitarian affairs had been given so much budgetary allocation but the funds were not reaching the people they were meant to serve.
He said the previous stakeholders in the Ministry employed means that did not connect with the expected beneficiaries, hence the funds got to the wrong hands.
Arising from this, Ned Nwoko said the proposed agency would have a national data base which would capture everyone irrespective of the individual’s socio-economic and political status.
“It’s about capturing every individual in Nigeria – civil servants, self employed, the sick, students, the physically challenged and the vulnerable, the rich, the poor and all categories of people. Nigeria needs to work with verifiable information.
“We should target people living with disabilities and the vulnerable. We must look at people who are really in need. They are many in Nigeria. This Ministry has not done that.
“The Ministry has been using consultants to help them compile names and N100bn was made available to them. They decide who should be given the money. Maybe to their families and friends and those who supported them. But not to those who need the money.
“With this data, we can plan Nigeria. We can plan for the vulnerable. Before releasing money to the Ninistry, let’s fix this first”, Senator Nwoko insisted.
AUSTIN OYIBODE
PUBLISHER/EDITOR
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