President Muhammadu Buhari Wednesday, presided over the weekly meeting of the Federal Executive Council FEC, which has economic and security issues as top on it agenda,
The President had before the commencement of the meeting observed a minute silence in honour of the victims of Abuja-Kaduna train terror attack.
Secretary to the Government of the Federation SGF, Boss Mustapha led the Cabinet members to observe the one minute silence in honour of those who lost their lives in the I’ll-fated rail ride, that claimed about 8 lives.
The Official report also claimed that about 46 people were injured, while scores are still feared missing or trapped in the bushes around the Rigasa village where the attacks occurred.
BusinessDay gathered from the manifest received from the Nigerian Railway Corporation, that 398 passengers bought tickets, while only 362 were validated.
The passengers’ manifest excluded the NRC workers and security officials on board the train, while several passengers could not be accounted for.
The FEC meeting is being attended by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, and Chief of Staff to the President, Ibrahim Gambari, alongside other top government officials.
National Security Adviser to the President, Babagana Monguno, a retired Major General is expected to brief the Council of the security architecture and response plans to the increasing security challenges facing the nation.
Read also: Abuja-Kaduna train attack: Amaechi blames bureaucratic bottleneck
The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, and her counterpart in Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar-Faroq, BusinessDay gathered are also attending the FEC meeting to help provide government reactions to the latest World Bank reports on the rising poverty in the country.
The World Bank had in its latest reports, revealed that “Poverty reduction had stagnated since 2015.”
This revelation is coming on the heels of Federal government claims that this administration has invested heavily in social spendings through the “ Conditional Cash transfers, National Poverty Alleviation, under the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP)
Federal government had revealed also that under the first phase of the Government Enterprises and Empowerment Programme (GEEPI), a total of 1,962,383 benefited from the TraderMoni , while MarketMoni had 425,362 beneficiaries and 36,508 got the FarmerMoni, between 2018 and 2019,
The World Bank reports revealed that Poverty reduction in Nigeria appears to have stalled in the last decade, according to both back-casting and survey-to-survey imputation techniques.
The global financial institution noted that “ the best estimates from the back-casting approach suggest that the poverty headcount rate—at the international poverty line—was 42.8 percent in 2010. This is only slightly below the analogous estimate from inputting into the 2010/11 GHS, 43.5 percent. With poverty dropping by at most a few percentage points over the last decade, the absolute number of poor people is likely to have climbed, given Nigeria’s rapid population growth.
“Since the back-casts provide yearly estimates, they also suggest that poverty may have started declining in the first part of the 2010s, but that this trend halted and then reversed around 2015. This is unsurprising—and indeed is hardwired into the back-casting model through real GDP growth estimates—given the 2016 recession, brought about by weakening oil prices.”
The Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, Health Minister, Ehanire Osagie, as well as the Labour and Employment Minister Chris Ngige, are also attending the meeting that also has the current strikes by the Academic Staff Union of Universities ASUU, as part of the agenda.
Other Ministers attending the FEC meeting include Works and Housing Minister, Babatunde Fashola, as well as those of Industry, Trade and Investment, Niyi Adebayo, Minister of State Labour and Employment Festus Keyamo, Minister of State Mines and Steel, Uche Ogar.
Other Ministers are however participating virtually from their various offices
