After the total lockdown in some states and partial lockdown in many states of the country which has led a lot of people to be staying away from their place of work, the Nigeria Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq has yesterday said the Federal Government had identified over 11 million poor Nigerians to benefit from the palliatives to cushion the harsh effects of the coronaviru pandemic.

This was made known when she was speaking in Abuja at the briefing by the presidential task force on COVID-19, she said the ministry had “11,045,537 individuals, 35 states, 453 local governments, 4,946 wards, 47,698 communities and 2,644,495 households on the national social register of poor and vulnerable households.”

However, Nigerians have started to question the modus operandi of selecting the 11 million people as poor Nigerians, because the country does not have a well known database for the less privilege and poor people like many developed countries.