Minister of State for Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction, Yusuf Tanko Sununu, made the announcement at a briefing on ‘Sustainable Response to Address the Humanitarian Gap Arising from the Partial Suspension of World Food Programme, WFP, operations in the Northeast and Northwest’, but he did not state the period during which the cash was made available.

He said the ministry has a budget of over N500 billion captured under the service-wide vote for the National and Social Investment Programme.

The fund is expected to be deployed for the implementation of the National Homegrown School Feeding Programme, Conditional Cash Transfer, N-Power training and FarmerMoni, the minister said.

Already, over five million families, which represent almost 75 million households, have been reached through the rapid response register.

“And over N493 billion has been disbursed,” he said.

The minister said the funds are disbursed based on the national social register and reflect the report of the multidimensional poverty index in Nigeria.