ABUJA, Nigeria …An economy and capital market expert, Prof. Uche Uwaleke, has called on the Federal Government to redesign its conditional cash transfer programmed to make it more transparent, better targeted and easier to independently verify.
Uwaleke, who is also the President of the Capital Market Academics of Nigeria (CMAN), made the recommendation in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.
The economist said the Federal Government’s cash transfer programmed could provide temporary relief and help protect vulnerable households from severe economic shocks,but argued that its effectiveness would depend on credible beneficiary identification, payment integrity, adequate transfer amounts and proper monitoring of outcomes.
According to him, a social protection programmed whose beneficiaries cannot be independently verified could exclude deserving households, create opportunities for abuse and undermine public confidence.
Uwaleke therefore recommended replacing the existing approach with a more transparent and independently verifiable social protection framework.
He called for the strengthening and regular updating of the national social register, with appropriate privacy safeguards and links to credible data from relevant government institutions.
He also recommended that community-based verification should complement digital identification to ensure that vulnerable people in remote and underserved communities are not left out of the programmed.
The expert further proposed a payment system that allows transactions to be traced, alongside accessible grievance-redress mechanisms and regular assessments to determine whether the programmed is achieving its intended objectives.
Call for broader economic interventions
Beyond the cash transfer programmed, Uwaleke also called for the revival of the Directorate of Food, Roads and Rural Infrastructure (DFRRI) as part of efforts to improve food production, rural infrastructure and access to markets.
He said a renewed DFRRI-type initiative should be redesigned as a community-centered rural productivity and infrastructure programmed rather than simply reproducing previous institutional arrangements.
According to him, such a programmed should priorities feeder roads, small-scale irrigation, rural electrification, water supply, produce aggregation centers, storage facilities, primary healthcare access and market infrastructure.
Uwaleke argued that improving rural infrastructure would help connect farmers to markets, reduce transportation costs, improve access to agricultural inputs and create employment through infrastructure projects.
He also stressed the need to reduce post-harvest losses, improve agricultural yields and strengthen connections between farmers, agro-processors and domestic markets.
Energy and infrastructure
The economist identified high energy costs as another major constraint on Nigerian businesses and domestic production.
He called for greater investment in gas infrastructure, renewable energy, embedded generation and reliable electricity supply, arguing that lower energy costs would improve industrial competitiveness, encourage domestic production and support job creation.
He similarly advocated prioritizing strategic roads, railways, ports and inland logistics infrastructure based on their potential economic returns and their ability to reduce the cost of moving people and goods.
Uwaleke said Nigeria also needs a deliberate strategy to deepen domestic manufacturing, expand agro-processing, develop industrial clusters and encourage production in areas where the country has competitive advantages.
He said achieving these objectives would require reliable energy, efficient ports, affordable long-term financing, predictable taxation, effective trade facilitation and a stable regulatory environment.
The CMAN president also called for stronger coordination between Nigeria’s fiscal and monetary authorities as the government continues its economic reform efforts.
The call comes as the Federal Government continues to rely on social intervention programmes as part of its efforts to cushion vulnerable Nigerians from economic pressures.
For the cash transfer programme to have a lasting impact, Uwaleke’s recommendations place emphasis not only on distributing funds but also on ensuring that assistance reaches the right people, payments can be tracked and the outcomes can be measured.
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