Poverty Alleviation: We’ve Touched 1.1m Indigent Families — Oyo Commissioner, Hon Toyin Balogun

Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Inclusion, Mrs Toyin Balogun, said on Wednesday that her Ministry has been working hard to bring to reality Governor ‘Seyi Makinde’s vision of taking the people of Oyo State from poverty to prosperity.

She noted that the Ministry set for itself the target of impacting two million indigent family units, adding that with the various interventions from the Ministry, it had achieved over 50 per cent of the target.

Balogun, who stated this at the Omituntun 2.0 Inter-Ministerial Briefing held at the Governor’s Office Briefing Room, Secretariat, Agodi, Ibadan, said the Ministry’s interventions have impacted 1.13 million indigent families so far.

According to her, 70 per cent of the interventions including conditional cash transfer and financial assistance from the Ministry have targeted both the male and the female demographics.

She noted that the government would not relent until the governor’s vision is fully achieved, adding that the Ministry has also achieved various successes including gender mainstreaming, contributing towards the reduction of out-of-school children, addressing gender-based violence and evaluating/settling destitute in the society, among other areas.

Mrs Balogun stressed that her Ministry was resolutely opposed to the sale of babies through government-owned or private orphanages, vowing to bring the full weight of the law to bear on culprits.

Balogun said: “In the last two years and a few months of Omituntun 2.0, not only have we fulfilled the broad mandate of His Excellency to lift our people from poverty to prosperity, we have also achieved a number of successes across areas of our core mandate.

And, we will continue to be so committed till the end of the timeline of this government to ensure that we are able to fulfill our promises.

“We gave ourselves a minimum target of two million indigent family units. So far, from all the various interventions of the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Inclusion, we have been able to positively impact about 1.13 million indigent family units.

“So, I think we are well on course to meet or even possibly surpass the target that we have assigned to ourselves.

“On destitute evacuation, we have a lot of vulnerable destitute on our streets. Now, between the timeline of the review, we have actually carried out a number of evacuation exercises.”

She stated that the administration of Governor Makinde has shown commitment to not only evacuating destitute but also rehabilitating and empowering them with vocational and technical skills so that they can have a more meaningful life, adding that plans were also underway to renovate the rehabilitation centre and orphanages being managed by the state.

The Commissioner equally said that her Ministry has partnered effectively with several other Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government with a view to delivering on its objectives and contributing to the overall well-being of residents of the state.

She listed the Ministries of Health, Justice, Education and SUBEB, among others, as some of the MDAs with which her Ministry has enjoyed a robust partnership, saying this fulfilled the expectations of the Sustainable Development Goal 17, which has to do with partnerships for progress.

“One of the precepts that we are very big on at the Ministry of Women Affairs is inter-ministerial, departmental and agency collaboration across the board, because we cannot do it alone. No matter how visionary and committed we are, there are a number of interventions that need the support and collaboration of other agencies, and we have been doing this.

“Coming specifically to the issue of the out-of-school children and the issue of gender-based violence, there’s a broad spectrum of the vulnerable, but of course, what that leaves out is the female demography. And, you can rest assured that it is a primary concern. It is a primary area of consideration and activity for the Ministry of Women Affairs.

“There are numerous cases of gender-based violence that we have handled. We have quite a number of them; over 100 cases presently in courts that are being handled by the Ministry of Justice. We also have the children end of the spectrum, where we have a lot of child victims of abuse. We have got children and women victims of trafficking.

“We also collaborate with SUBEB and the Ministry of Education towards eliminating or reducing to the barest minimum the menace of out-of-school children.

“Prior to the advent of His Excellency’s government, Oyo State held the unenviable position of having the highest number of out-of-school children in the entire Southern Nigeria. By the time the governor came on board in 2019, we inherited about 500,000 out-of-school children from the previous administration. Between then and this moment, it gives me joy to let you know that the dismal figure has been almost halved.

“One of the steps that we have taken, like I mentioned earlier, is that we are very big on inter-agency collaboration. It is not something we can do alone. So, one of the measures we have put in place is not just in collaboration with SUBEB, but also with the parent body, which is the Ministry of Education.

“One of the interventions that we have put in place is an understanding that we have with the Ministry of Education and SUBEB in terms of waivers when we bring in these children from off the streets, we have a programme where we get them back into the school system. And this is targeted at reducing the out-of-school children index.

“So, we have been able to bring quite a number of these children off the streets and back into the school system. So, these are some of the interventions that we have collaboratively put in place, which have resulted in the significant reduction that we have had in the out-of-school children index in the state.”