Alarmed with humanitarian crisis in the country, the Minister for Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr. Betta Edu has called for a strong collaboration with the Ministry of Interior.
The collaboration according to Edu, who said this during a visit to the Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo on Tuesday, will be in areas of internal security, human trafficking and migration as an inter-ministerial committee for actionable results will be put in place.
The Minister in a press release by her Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Rasheed Olanrewaju Zubair, said if this is done, it would go a long way in tackling the root cause of humanitarian crisis and poverty in the country.
Edu vowed to do all she could to end the misery of Nigerians caught up in the vortex of poverty and humanitarian needs, hence the strong synergy between her Ministry and the Interior Ministry which has become inevitable, owing to the determination of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to address the humanitarian crisis in the country and efforts to remove Nigerians from the global poverty index in line with the Renewed Hope Agenda of his administration.
While commending the Minister of Interior for bringing his wealth of experience to bear on the Ministry, Dr Edu said collaboration with her Ministry will enable her to get the intelligence required to manage any humanitarian responses.
“We are here for serious business and for us to succeed, the President has said we must team up and there must be inter-sectoral and ministerial collaboration to achieve success.
“My new responsibilities is a focus on covering a greater population of vulnerable Nigerians, providing them with humanitarian services and alleviating their poverty in line with President Tinubu’s agenda…to seeing that Nigerians smile again, and reduce the number of people living below the poverty line to the barest minimum.” she said.
The Minister said; “my coming here is to quickly speak with you because your Ministry is one of the Ministries that will make my job easier.
“The President is committed to seeing that he reduces the number of persons who are exposed or prone to a humanitarian crisis, I am saying this because a lot of our work depends on how well you do your work in the Ministry of Interior.
“We need your support and we need it at all levels. The heads of security agencies here at this meeting will help to work with our team to gather intelligence on how people are moving in and out of our country.
“There are issues of human trafficking, child labor, and sexual exploitation, amongst other things which lead to humanitarian crisis. We cannot continue to allow this trend to go unattended, It’s not acceptable. We need your support. We need intelligence from you. We just got the approval for officers from NAPTIP to be present at the different ports.
“We need you to know the importance of our collaboration with you on the border. We have to find ways to step up our intelligence in Nigeria, we have too many illegal borders.”
On social intervention, the Minister said the expansion of the social register will be extended to the next servicemen and widows of paramilitary organizations whose husbands have died in the cause of active service, adding that inmates of the Nigeria Correctional Services will also be captured and benefit from the skill acquisition programs of her Ministry.
Responding, Tunji-Ojo commended Dr Edu for the Renewed Hope collaboration she sought from his Ministry, saying, the Inter-ministerial Committee headed by the two permanent secretaries in the two Ministries will work out modalities that will strengthen the focus of their agenda.
He described as heartwarming and a welcome development, the Humanitarian Minister’s offer to train the inmates of the Correctional Services in skill acquisition.
